The injection may highlight potential
problems |
Brain
scientists believe they may have found a way to detect the earliest
signs that a patient is developing Parkinson's disease.
They hope that finding will help identify targets for future
drugs to tackle the cause of the disease.
The research, carried out at Imperial College London, centres
around a type of immune cell called a microglial cell.
These are part of the body's method of fighting off infections
within the brain and central nervous system.
When activated, they cause inflammation, which scientists already
believe is linked to the cell death which causes Parkinson's.
Scientists are trying to find out whether the cells are the
underlying cause of Parkinson's, or simply accelerate the disease.
Radioactive injection
Researchers think that if they could measure the level of
activation of microglial cells, they could both confirm whether they
are the "villain" - and perhaps in future use it as a test to
confirm the presence of the disease in patients with the most subtle
symptoms.
The Imperial
team engineered a mildly radioactive chemical called a "tracer",
which has the ability to bind to active and inflamed microglial
cells.
They injected this into the brain of 60 patients already showing
the outward signs of early Parkinsonism.
They progress of the tracer was then monitored using a brain
scanner.
Their results confirmed that it was possible to track microglial
cell activity in this way, and the trial is now being extended so
that the same patients can be scanned again to see if the changing
scans correllate with changing physical symptoms.
Detecting the disease before symptoms appear would be
impractical, however - it would involve carrying out highly
expensive scans on hundreds of thousands of people.
Step forward
Parkinson's Disease is caused by the death of cells in the brain
which produce the chemical dopamine.
This chemical helps the brain produce smooth muscular movements,
and its absence can lead to gradually worsening tremor in the hands
and arms, stiffness and slow movement.
Drug treatments can alleviate these symptoms, but there is
currently no cure.
Professor David Brooks, who led the research, said: "We are very
pleased with our results.
"Inflammation in the brain may be causing this already
debilitating condition to worsen at a quicker rate than it would
otherwise.
"By detecting it in the early stages of the disease we hope to be
able to give patients suitable treatments that will delay its
development.
"We hope that it would even allow some of the damaged cells to
produce the much needed dopamine again - which would really help the
patient."
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By detecting it in the early stages of
the disease we hope to be able to give patients suitable
treatments that will delay its development 
