The brain's "garbage dump" hides Parkinson's clues

, "I'm old, isn't it Parkinson's?" "
to mention Parkinson's disease, many people will naturally think of "hands shaking" "limbs do not listen to the call." Although this is indeed a typical symptom of the disease, people who develop these symptoms do not necessarily have Parkinson's disease.
one of six or seven spectotypes in the "D.C." movement spectrum. Due to the lack of effective early identification methods, diagnosis mostly relies on the experience of clinicians, the rate of misdiagnosis is high. Teng Junjun, director of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, told China Science Daily.
study by Mr. Teng and others found that meninges lymphatic tube draination in patients with primary Parkinson's disease was impaired, and for the first time suggested a noninvasive method for assessing the relevant draination function as a sensitive indicator for early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. The study was published online January 19 in Nature-Medicine.Parkinson's disease is a common neurodegenerative disease, clinically manifested as slow movement, static tremor of the limb, posture gait disorder, muscle strength, etc. , the average age of onset is about 60 years old, the prevalence rate of the population over 65 years of age in China is about 1.7%.
, it is easy to confuse primary Parkinson's disease with early Parkinson's overlay syndromes, such as multi-system atrophy and aggressive nuclear paralysis. At the same time, some patients slow down their fine movements and have mild symptoms that are difficult to diagnose, thus missing out on early intervention opportunities.
it is understood that the survival of primary Parkinson's disease is about 15-20 years, while Parkinson's syndrome has an average survival of less than 10 years.
currently, the recognized diagnostically valuable test is the doba transporter visible in the positive electron emission fault scan (PET), which doctors can use to evaluate the end function of the synth dopamine. However, the shortcomings of the technology are also more obvious, its specificity is limited, it is difficult to distinguish between primary Parkinson's disease and Parkinson's overlay syndrome, at the same time has a certain radiation damage, the cost is more expensive.
is there a safe and accurate way to diagnose Parkinson's disease? This problem has been bothering clinicians.was inspired by an accident.
2015, a team at the University of Virginia found that the meninges lymphatic tubes were present in the epidural. In previous decades, the brain was widely regarded as an "immune exemption zone" that lacked a direct link to the immune system.
study led Teng to think: Does the meninges in the brain also play a role in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease?
using high-resolution imaging and dynamic enhanced magnetic resonance (DCE-MRI) technology, the researchers found that the meninges' lymphatic tubes act as "waste disposal stations" that constantly remove waste from the brain. Compared with normal people, the "garbage disposal station" of primary Parkinson's patients is not working, and its "removal speed", i.e. the drain function is significantly slower, suggests that it may have some degree of damage.
for further verification, the researchers selected more than 700 patients with Parkinson's syndrome and movement disorder-related diseases as the experimental group, and more than 300 normal people as a control group. At the same time, according to the diagnostic criteria of different motor disorders, they subdivided the experimental group into primary Parkinson's disease, multi-system atrophy, Louis dementia and other types.
"We found that the degree of impairment of the draination function of the meninges lymphatic tube was closely related to the severity of their clinical symptoms in patients with primary Parkinson's disease compared to other groups of patients. Wang Xuejing, one of the authors of the paper and deputy director of zhengzhou University's First Affiliated Hospital, told reporters.results suggest that assessing meninges lymphatic tube drainage and excretion through DCE-MRI imaging may be a new indicator for diagnosing and identifying primary Parkinson's disease, Wang said.
this means that people with slower cerebral lymphatic tube drains are more likely to develop primary Parkinson's disease and more likely to develop Parkinson's overlay syndrome. The researchers' findings were confirmed by the results of a 2-3-year follow-up of the samples.
In animal model experiments, Wang Xuejing et al. also found damage to meninges lymphatic draination in primary Parkinson's disease-induced mouse models induced by α-syn PFFs, and that the damaged mechanism may be associated with a lack of close connection between meninges inflammation responses caused by pathological α-syn deposition and the loss of close connections between endothrotrhey cells in the meninges.
"For the first time in the world, mr. Teng said, "We have shown the drainage of the meninges lymphatic tubes in living organisms using MRI methods and have conducted quantitative assessments to help clinicians diagnose Parkinson's disease at an early stage."
Liu Jun, director of neurology at Ruijin Hospital, affiliated with Shanghai Jiaoxuan University School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, said: "The noninvasional and quantitative evaluation methods of meninges lymphatic tube drainage proposed in this study will open up new directions for the diagnosis and evaluation of neurological diseases, have great value for the early identification of Parkinson's disease, and give us a new understanding of the mechanism of immune abnormality in the nervous system involved in Parkinson's disease." "
but there is still a long way to go before it can truly become a viable diagnostic tool.
the future, we plan to continue to expand the sample size. Some patients are in the forward stage and do not have any movement disorders at all, but if they also have symptoms of constipation, dreaming, and loss of smell, the chances of developing Parkinson's disease are high. These symptoms occur in the first 10-15 years of slow movement, so monitoring the flow rate of the meninges' lymphatic tubes may determine who will get sick and who won't. Teng Jun-soo said.
, can neuroimmune diseases be assessed in this way? This is also a question to be studied in the future. (Source: Liu Runan, China Science Journal)
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