Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have discovered that inflammation in the brain may play a role in the very early stages of Parkinson’s disease.
Their study, recently published in Movement Disorders, shows that inflammation could be one of the key changes happening in the brain before any treatment begins. This finding may help scientists better understand how the disease starts and could lead to new ways to treat it in the future.
Parkinson’s disease is a brain disorder that mainly affects movement. It often starts with small symptoms like hand tremors or stiffness but gradually gets worse over time. The disease affects millions of people around the world, and while there are treatments that help with symptoms, there is still no cure.
The research team, led by Professor Talene Yacoubian from the Department of Neurology, studied 58 people who had just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Importantly, none of these patients had started taking any medications for the disease yet. They also studied 62 people without Parkinson’s for comparison.
The goal was to find out if brain inflammation was present right at the beginning of the disease—before any treatment could influence it. This would help answer whether inflammation might be part of the disease itself and not just a side effect of medications or a later-stage symptom.
To detect inflammation, the researchers used a special brain scan called PET imaging. Before the scan, they injected a small amount of a radioactive substance into each person’s bloodstream.
This substance attaches to a protein called TSPO, which is found in brain cells that are part of the immune system. When there is inflammation in the brain, the amount of TSPO increases, and the scan lights up to show where the inflammation is happening.
The results were clear: people with early Parkinson’s had higher levels of TSPO in their brains compared to people without the disease. This suggests that inflammation is already present at the very beginning of Parkinson’s and may play a role in how the disease starts and develops.
Professor Yacoubian said that while this is an exciting discovery, it also raises new questions. For example, does the amount of inflammation stay the same as the disease gets worse? Or does it increase? Could brain inflammation help predict how fast someone’s condition will decline?
To find out, the researchers plan to follow the same group of people for up to five years. They will do more scans and track how each person’s symptoms change over time. This will help them see if the inflammation can be used to understand or even predict the progress of Parkinson’s disease.
This study could open up new ways to treat Parkinson’s. If scientists can figure out how to reduce this early inflammation, they might be able to slow down the disease or stop it from getting worse. For now, it gives researchers a better idea of what’s happening in the brain at the very start of Parkinson’s and where they might focus future treatments.
If you care about Parkinson’s disease, please read studies that Vitamin B may slow down cognitive decline, and Mediterranean diet could help lower risk of Parkinson’s.
For more information about brain health, please see recent studies that blueberry supplements may prevent cognitive decline, and results showing Plant-based diets could protect cognitive health from air pollution.
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