A team of researchers, led by scientists at UCL and University Medical Center Goettingen, Germany, have developed a simple blood test that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to predict Parkinson’s up to seven years before the onset of symptoms.
The research, published in Nature Communications, found that when a branch of AI called machine learning, analysed a panel of eight blood based biomarkers whose concentrations are altered in patients with Parkinson’s, it could provide a diagnosis with 100% accuracy.
The team then experimented to see whether the test could predict the likelihood that a person would go on to develop Parkinson’s.
They did this by analysing blood from 72 patients with Rapid Eye Movement Behaviour Disorder (iRBD). This disorder results in patients physically acting out their dreams without knowing it (having vivid or violent dreams). It is now known that about 75-80% of these people with iRBD will go on to develop a synucleinopathy (a type of brain disorder caused by the abnormal buildup of a protein called alpha-synuclein in brain cells) – including Parkinson’s.
When the machine learning tool analysed the blood of these patients it identified that 79% of the iRBD patients had the same profile as someone with Parkinson’s.
The patients were followed up over the course of ten years and the AI predictions have so far matched the clinical conversion rate – with the team correctly predicting 16 patients as going on to develop Parkinson’s and being able to do this up to seven years before the onset of any symptoms. The team are now continuing to follow up on those predicted to develop Parkinson’s, to further verify the accuracy of the test.
Co-first-author Dr Michael Bartl (University Medical Center Goettingen) who conducted the research from the clinical side alongside Dr Jenny Hällqvist (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health), said: “By determining 8 proteins in the blood, we can identify potential Parkinson’s patients several years in advance. This means that drug therapies could potentially be given at an earlier stage, which could possibly slow down disease progression or even prevent it from occurring.
