Tag: Parkinson's Disease

Categories : Medical Research & Technology Neurodegenerative DiseasesTags :

Scientists Develop AI Tool to Detect Parkinson’s Disease

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Researchers have developed an AI program that can assist physicians in performing a quantitative analysis when diagnosing Parkinson’s disease. 

As human populations continue to age due to improved medical care, there is an impending ‘Parkinson’s disease pandemic’ where numbers of individuals suffering this age-related neurodegenerative disease threaten to overwhelm healthcare systems. There is a need to distinguish between Parkinson’s and other diseases which have similar motor symptoms.
Assistant Professor Andrey Somov at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology and colleagues developed a machine learning algorithm to analyse video recordings of patients performing certain tasks.

“As part of the research process, we had the opportunity to closely interact with doctors and medical personnel, who shared their ideas and experience. It was fascinating observing how two seemingly different disciplines came together to help people. We also had the opportunity to monitor all parts of the research, from designing the methodology to data analysis and machine learning,” Kovalenko said.

The advantages of the video analysis approach is that it is simple, objective, noninvasive, quick, inexpensive and versatile.

To develop the machine learning algorithm, the researchers recorded 83 patients with and without Parkinson’s performing 15 tasks that they had designed, such as filling a glass with water. These tasks were developed in a prior feasibility study using wearable sensors. The machine learning technology allows for objective analysis which picks up certain features of the disease which may not be visible to the naked eye.

Coauthor of the study Sklotech Assistant Professor Dmitry Dylov, and “Machine learning and computer vision methods we used in this research are already well established in a number of medical applications; they can be trusted, and the diagnostic exercises for Parkinson’s disease have been in development by neurologists for some time. What is truly new about this study is our quantitative ranking of these exercises according to their contribution to a precise and specific final diagnosis. This could only be achieved in collaboration between doctors, mathematicians and engineers.”

“This collaboration between doctors and scientists in data analysis allows for many important clinical nuances and details that help achieve the best results. We as doctors see great potential in this; apart from differential diagnosis, we need objective tools to assess motor fluctuation in patients with PD. These tools can provide a more personalized approach to therapy and help make decisions on neurosurgical interventions as well as assess the outcomes of surgery later,” noted coauthor of the paper, neurologist Ekaterina Bril.

Source: News-Medical.Net

Journal information: Kovalenko, E., et al. (2021) Distinguishing Between Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremor Through Video Analytics Using Machine Learning: a Pilot Study. IEEE Sensors.doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2020.3035240.

Categories : Ageing Neurodegenerative DiseasesTags :

Parkinson’s Disease Spotted in Advance with Health Checkup

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A study by the University of Nagoya has shown that general health checkups may be effective at spotting early signs of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in advance.

Specifically, the prodromal stage shows sex differences, with the markers for males being decreased cholesterol and haematocrit (the percentage of red blood cells in blood) levels, while in females it is increased blood pressure. PD is the second most common disease affecting the nervous system after Alzheimer’s disease, is caused by a deficiency in the neurotransmitter dopamine. By the stage where sufferers experience motor symptoms such as tremors, stiffness, bradykinesia (slowness of movement), more than half of all dopaminergic neurons have been lost. Postural instability occurs in the late stage. Several processes have been implicated in PD, such as mitochondrial dysfunction, defective protein clearance mechanisms, and neuroinflammation, but it is not clear how these factors interact.

Prior studies have shown that non-motor symptoms including constipation, rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, impairment of sense of smell, and depression, emerge in patients with PD 10 to 20 years before the onset of motor symptoms – meaning that PD may be detectable in advance with other measures.

“If we can detect biological changes in the patients’ bodies well before the onset of the motor symptoms, we can start medical treatments in an early stage,” said Prof Masahisa Katsuno of the Graduate School of Medicine at Nagoya University.

The team used health checkup data from 22 male and 23 female patients with PD, dating to before they were diagnosed with the disease. They supplemented this with data from 60 male and 60 female healthy individuals who had checkup data for at least four years.The checkup data was compared between healthy individuals and PD patients to establish a baseline, and then were examined for longitudinal changes prior to the onset of PD. They found that in the premotor stage, blood pressure increased in females, while in males total and low-density cholesterol levels and haematocrit decreased.

“In this study, we found that blood pressure, haematocrit, and serum cholesterol levels are potential biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease before the onset of its motor symptoms,” said Prof Katsuno. “This finding indicates that general health checkups can help detect early signs of developing Parkinson’s disease.”  Based on the findings, the team is now working to identify individuals at risk of developing PD in an attempt to forestall the development of their disease.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Katsunori Yokoi et al. Longitudinal analysis of premotor anthropometric and serological markers of Parkinson’s disease, Scientific Reports (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-77415-1

Categories : Ageing Diet and Nutrition Mental HealthTags :

Mediterranean-type Diets Protect Against Parkinson’s Disease

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Researchers at the University of British Columbia have shown that the Mediterranean diet and another diet based on it, have a strong link in protecting against Parkinson’s disease (PD). 

These two diets had previously been shown that they could protect against other neurodegenerative diseases. The Mediterranean‐DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet combines aspects of the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet which protects against hypertension. The MIND diet emphasises consumption of berries, as research shows that they protect against mental decline, eating leafy greens and poultry. The MIND diet also mostly does away with potato, milk and fruit (excluding berries).

Senior author Dr Silke Appel-Cresswell said, “There is a lack of medications to prevent or delay Parkinson’s disease yet we are optimistic that this new evidence suggests nutrition could potentially delay onset of the disease.”
Following the diets delayed the average onset of PD by 17.4 years in women, and 8.4 years in men.

Since PD already has a notable sex difference, with 60% of sufferers being men, despite their shorter average lifespan, the sex difference in response to the diets opens new avenues of research
“It drives home the connection between the gut and the brain for this disease,” Dr Brett Finlay said. “It also shows it’s not just one disease that healthy eating can affect, but several of these cognitive diseases.”

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Avril Metcalfe‐Roach et al, MIND and Mediterranean Diets Associated with Later Onset of Parkinson’s Disease, Movement Disorders (2021). DOI: 10.1002/mds.28464