Aarhus University researchers studied the condition of the dopamine producing nerve cells in the brain and cells that participate in the brain’s immune system in people suffering from REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD).
The study shows that patients suffering from RBD have a risk of developing Parkinson’s disease or dementia in the future because they already suffer from a lack of dopamine in the brain. Parkinson’s disease occurs because the group of nerve cells in the brain that produce dopamine stop working.
“These patients have an inflammation of the brain in the area where the dopamine-producing nerve cells are found,” says one of the researchers behind the study, Morten Gersel Stokholm from Aarhus University and the PET Centre at Aarhus University Hospital, in a release.
The findings are published in the neurological journal The Lancet Neurology.
Researchers had not previously demonstrated that there is a form of inflammation of the brain in patients who are at risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.
“With this study, we have gained new knowledge about the disease processes in the brain in the early initial stages of the disease development. The idea is for this knowledge to be used to determine which patients with the sleep disorder will later develop Parkinson’s disease. At the same time, this is also knowledge that can help to develop drugs which can stop or slow the development of the diseases,” says Stokholm.
The study is a case-control study.
