Vision tests to map Parkinson's cognitive decline
Wednesday January 20th 2021
New research is suggesting that a simple test of vision can predict the risk of cognitive impairment and possible dementia among people with Parkinson’s disease.
A further study is helping to explain the link between vision problems and connections between other brain areas.
Dr Angeliki Zarkali of University College London, UK, led both studies. She explains: “We have found that people with Parkinson’s disease who have visual problems are more likely to get dementia, and that appears to be explained by underlying changes to their brain wiring.
“Vision tests might provide us with a window of opportunity to predict Parkinson’s dementia before it begins, which may help us find ways to stop the cognitive decline before it’s too late.”
The first study involved 77 people with Parkinson’s disease who were given vision tests and followed for 18 months. Results of these tests predicted which patients would later develop dementia.
Findings were published in Movement Disorders recently.
The second study, yesterday (19 January) in Communications Biology, involved 88 Parkinson’s disease patients - 33 of whom had visual dysfunction - and 30 healthy adults.
All participants had MRI scans of the brain. These showed that structural connections between brain regions are decoupled among people with Parkinson’s disease, and this decoupling is particularly evident among those with vision problems, who had more decoupling in memory-related regions in the temporal lobe.
Dr Angeliki said: “The two papers together help us to understand what’s going on in the brains of people with Parkinson’s who experience cognitive decline, as it appears to be driven by a breakdown in the wiring that connects different brain regions.”
Zarkali, A. et al. Visual Dysfunction Predicts Cognitive Impairment and White Matter Degeneration in Parkinson’s Disease. Movement Disorders 9 January 2021 doi: 10.1002/mds.28477
Zarkali, A. et al. Organisational and neuromodulatory underpinnings of structural-functional connectivity decoupling in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Communications Biology 19 January 2021 doi: 10.1038/s42003-020-01622-9
Tags: Brain & Neurology | Eye Health | UK News
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