- Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition, is characterized by depletion of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain.
- The condition can be diagnosed only once symptoms such as shaking, stiffness and problems with balance and coordination start, by which time the nervous system has been damaged.
- New research suggests that changes in the heart precede the symptomatic stage of the disease.
- Using PET scans, researchers found that low levels of dopamine in the heart were strong predictors of later development of Parkinson’s disease or dementia with Lewy bodies.
- The findings may lead to ways of diagnosing the conditions before damage has begun.
Parkinson’s disease affects at least 1 million people in the United States and 10 million worldwide. It is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease, and often leads to another form of dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, also known as Lewy body dementia.
In people with Parkinson’s disease, symptoms such as tremor, slowness of movement, limb stiffness and balance problems result from a lack of the neurotransmitter
A second neurotransmitter,
This can lead to
Once the symptoms are evident, substantial damage to the nervous system will have happened, so researchers are looking for ways to identify those at greatest risk, and to diagnose the disorders before much damage occurs.
One potential avenue is looking for changes that happen earlier in other parts of the body. New research using
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