Nature: new research reveals the difference between Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy

February 8, 2020 / biourn / -- recently, researchers at the University of Houston, Texas Health Science Center developed a method to distinguish two types of neurodegenerative diseases: Parkinson's disease (PD) and multiple system atrophy (MSA) The results were recently published in nature It is difficult to distinguish the two diseases because of their similar early symptoms: dyskinesia, tremor, uncontrollable movement during sleep, language disorder, etc However, the progress of the two diseases is different, so different treatment options may be needed (www Pixabay Com) "it is important for doctors to have an objective way to distinguish Pd from MSA in order to provide the best care for patients At present, the only way to distinguish them is to wait and observe the progress of the disease, and the deterioration of MSA is faster " "Because of the high misdiagnosis rate of the two diseases, we need to find a way to distinguish them in the early stage of symptom attack," said Claudio Soto, Ph.D., senior author of the article and professor of Neurology at the McGovern School of medicine, uthealth Both diseases are characterized by the deposition of a protein called α - synuclein in the nervous system The protein undergoes a process of misfolding and deforms These misfolded proteins aggregate and poison healthy peripheral nerve cells responsible for brain function, especially motor skills "The formation of these misshapen masses will last for years or even decades until enough damage is caused to begin to show signs of dyskinesia." The researchers used protein misfolded loop amplification (PMCA) technology developed by Soto to detect misfolded proteins previously associated with diseases such as Creutzfeldt Jakob and Alzheimer's disease, and used misfolded asyn aggregates as a method to develop biochemical diagnosis of PD The latest research shows that asyn PMCA can distinguish PD and MSA with a total sensitivity of 99.5%, which can help doctors understand the diseases they need to solve earlier The study also helps to understand the molecular basis of these diseases "Our latest research shows that the assyn aggregates of PD and MSA have different characteristics, so by amplifying the differences, we can effectively detect which disease the patient has," Soto said "This is of great significance for the accurate diagnosis and clinical care of patients and the development of new specific treatment methods for these two diseases." Sources of information: research's technology differences between Parkinson's disease and multiple system topology original sources: discriminating α - synuclein trains in Parkinson's disease and multiple system topology, nature (2020) Doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-1984-7, https://nature.com/articles/s41586-020-1984-7