Potential game-changer: a Parkinson’s disease prognostic test.
More than 150,000 people in the UK suffer from the progressive condition, which is currently the neurological disorder with the greatest rate of growth worldwide.
Although there are many different types of Parkinson’s disease, tremors, stiffness in the muscles, and slowness of movement are the most prevalent ones.
Medication cannot currently stop or slow down the progression of Parkinson’s disease, and developing preventative therapies is made more challenging by the inability to identify an individual’s risk of contracting the illness.
Like many degenerative neurological disorders, Parkinson’s causes brain cell destruction that has already taken place by the time symptoms appear.
Professor Kevin Mills of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, who contributed to the development of the blood test, stated, “At the moment, we are closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, and we need to start experimental treatments before patients develop symptoms.”
Researchers from University College London and University Medical Centre in Goettingen, Sweden, evaluated blood samples from patients with Parkinson’s disease and found eight important proteins, or “biomarkers,” common to those with the condition. Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence.
