Parkinson's disease may have warning indicators 20–30 years before symptoms appear. The researchers from the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne stated that a biomarker known as F-AV-133 can assist in identifying Parkinson's disease and properly track neurodegeneration when used in conjunction with PET, or positron emission tomography, scans.
The imaging agent F-AV-133 has demonstrated potential as a PET tracer for Parkinson's disease neurodegeneration detection and tracking. Parkinson's disease is a degenerative neurological illness marked by tremors and poor muscle coordination.
"Parkinson's disease is very hard to diagnose until symptoms are obvious, by which time up to 85 per cent of the brain's neurons that control motor coordination have been destroyed. At that point, many treatments are likely to be ineffective," said Kevin Barnham, professor at The Florey and lead researcher of the study published in the journal Neurology.
The researchers discovered that, despite the fact that the disease's patients' clinical symptoms did not significantly alter based on the diagnostic tools now in use, the PET scans revealed a considerable loss of nerve cells or neurons in three important brain regions in these patients.
The findings suggest that F-AV-133 is a more sensitive means of monitoring neurodegeneration than what is now available, the researchers said in their study. Using mathematical modelling, they found that when clinical symptoms of the disease begin to show and are sufficient for diagnosis, approximately 33 years' worth of slow neuronal loss has already occurred.
