Objective To investigate the association between parkin gene S/N167 polymorphism and the risk for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) using the methods of meta-analysis. Method References were retrieved through the computerized Medline, Cochrane Library and CBM search from 1998 to 2003. Similar search strategies were applied to each of these databases. The unpublished data of our study were also included.Studies eligible for this meta-analysis should meet the following inclusion criterias: ① presentation of original data and a cross-sectional design. ② PD as the outcome of interest. ③ an odds ratio (or enough information to calculate it) reported to quantify the association between the frequencies of genotypes and alleles of parkin gene S/N167 polymorphism and the risk for PD. All analyses were conducted with ’Review Manager’ Version 4.2 software. Results A total of 1 239 PD patients and 1 168 control studies were studied. The combined data statistics revealed the frequencies of the genotypes and alleles were higher, but showed no statistically difference, for the total PD group from that ofthe control group (Z=1.57, P=0.12). After stratification according to eastern or western origin, the frequencies of G/A+A/A genotype and a allele of eastern origin were significantly higher [test for overall effect: P=0.01, OR=1.41, 95%CI= (1.08 to1.83); P=0.01, OR=1.25, 95%CI= (1.08 to1.44), respectively] in the PD group than that in the control group. After including our unpublished data, the results remained constant, and the trend was much more pronounced. Conversely, there was no difference [test for overall effect: P=0.08, OR=0.55, 95%CI= (0.30 to1.02); P=0.08, OR=0.55, 95%CI= (0.28 to1.08)] in the frequencies of allele and genotype of western origin between the PD patients and the controls. Conclusions The meta-analysis suggests that the parkin gene S/N167 polymorphism might be a genetic risk factor for PD of eastern origin, but not a definite risk for PD of western origin.
1-methyl-6,7-dihydroxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydroisoquinoline (Sal) is a kind of catechol isoquinoline compound, which mainly exists in mammalian brain and performs a variety of biological functions. Through in vivo metabolism, Sal can be transformed into endogenous neurotoxins and can participate the occurrence of Parkinson’s disease (PD). This has attracted widespread concern of researchers. Recently, many research works have shown that Sal may lead to alcohol addiction and regulate hormone release of the neuroendocrine system, which indicated that it is a potential regulator of dopaminergic neurons. In this paper, we discuss the neural functions of Sal on the above aspects, and wish to provide some theoretical supports for further research on its mechanism.
Parkinson’s disease is a common chronic progressive neurodegenerative disease, and its main pathological change is the degeneration and loss of dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra striatum. Vitamin D receptors are widely distributed in neurons and glial cells, and the normal function of substantia nigra striatum system depends on the level of vitamin D and the normal expression of vitamin D receptors. In recent years, from basic to clinical research, there are some differences in the conclusion of the correlation of vitamin D and its receptor gene polymorphism with Parkinson’s disease. This paper aims to review the research on the correlation of vitamin D and vitamin D receptor gene polymorphism with Parkinson’s disease, and discuss the future research direction in this field.
At present, the incidence of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is gradually increasing. This seriously affects the quality of life of patients, and the burden of diagnosis and treatment is increasing. However, the disease is difficult to intervene in early stage as early monitoring means are limited. Aiming to find an effective biomarker of PD, this work extracted correlation between each pair of electroencephalogram (EEG) channels for each frequency band using weighted symbolic mutual information and k-means clustering. The results showed that State1 of Beta frequency band (P = 0.034) and State5 of Gamma frequency band (P = 0.010) could be used to differentiate health controls and off-medication Parkinson’s disease patients. These findings indicated that there were significant differences in the resting channel-wise correlation states between PD patients and healthy subjects. However, no significant differences were found between PD-on and PD-off patients, and between PD-on patients and healthy controls. This may provide a clinical diagnosis reference for Parkinson’s disease.
Objective To assess the changes in depression symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) receiving combined treatment of deep brain stimulation (DBS) and antiparkinsonian drug therapy (DT) compared with under DT alone. Methods Related literature was retrieved from electronic databases, including PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data, and VIP databases. Stata 14.0 software was used for statistical analysis. Network meta-analysis was performed using frequentist model to compare different interventions with each other. Results Five cohort studies and seven randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included. The total number of participants was 1241. Assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score as the primary outcome, patients who received DT alone showed worse outcome in depression as compared to those who received subthalamic nucleus (STN)-DBS plus DT [standardized mean difference (SMD)=0.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) (0.01, 0.59), P<0.05], and there was no significant difference between the patients receiving globus pallidus interna (GPi)-DBS plus DT and those receiving STN-DBS plus DT [SMD=–0.12, 95%CI (–0.41, 0.16), P>0.05] or those receiving DT alone [SMD=–0.42, 95%CI (–0.84, 0.00), P>0.05]. Assessed by BDI-Ⅱ as the primary outcome, patients who received DT alone showed worse outcome in depression than those who received STN-DBS plus DT [SMD=0.29, 95%CI (0.05, 0.54), P<0.05]; compared with STN-DBS plus DT and DT alone, GPi-DBS plus DT was associated with better improvement in depression [SMD=–0.26, 95%CI (–0.46, –0.06), P<0.05; SMD=–0.55, 95%CI (–0.88, –0.23), P<0.05]. The ranking results of surface under the cumulative ranking curves showed that DBS plus DT had a better superiority in depression symptoms, and GPi-DBS was better than STN-DBS. Conclusion Compared with DT, STN-DBS plus DT is more likely to improve the depressive symptoms of PD patients, and GPi-DBS may be better than STN-DBS.
For speech detection in Parkinson’s patients, we proposed a method based on time-frequency domain gradient statistics to analyze speech disorders of Parkinson’s patients. In this method, speech signal was first converted to time-frequency domain (time-frequency representation). In the process, the speech signal was divided into frames. Through calculation, each frame was Fourier transformed to obtain the energy spectrum, which was mapped to the image space for visualization. Secondly, deviations values of each energy data on time axis and frequency axis was counted. According to deviations values, the gradient statistical features were used to show the abrupt changes of energy value in different time-domains and frequency-domains. Finally, KNN classifier was applied to classify the extracted gradient statistical features. In this paper, experiments on different speech datasets of Parkinson’s patients showed that the gradient statistical features extracted in this paper had stronger clustering in classification. Compared with the classification results based on traditional features and deep learning features, the gradient statistical features extracted in this paper were better in classification accuracy, specificity and sensitivity. The experimental results show that the gradient statistical features proposed in this paper are feasible in speech classification diagnosis of Parkinson’s patients.
Objective To understand the frailty status and main influencing factors of elderly Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. Methods The elderly PD patients who attended the Department of Neurology of Changshu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine between November 2023 and March 2024 were selected. The patients’ frailty conditions were investigated using general information questionnaire, Chinese version of Tilburg Frailty Indicator, Hoehn-Yahr Rating Scale, Mini-Nutritional Assessment Short Form, Movement Disorder Society-Unified PD Rating Scale Part Ⅲ, PD Sleep Scale-2, and Mini-Mental State Examination. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to further determine the influencing factors of the frailty status in elderly PD patients. Results A total of 170 PD patients were included. Among them, 117 cases (68.82%) had frailty, while 53 cases (31.18%) had not frailty. The average score for frailty was (6.48±3.34) points, the average score for nutritional status was (11.89±1.65) points, the average score for motor function was (27.40±13.73) points, the average score for sleep quality was (16.05±7.76) points, and the average score for cognitive status is (26.25±4.51) points. The Pearson correlation analysis results showed that PD patient frailty was positively correlated with motor function and sleep quality (P<0.01), and negatively correlated with nutritional status and cognitive status (P<0.01). The results of multiple linear regression analysis showed that age, education, place of residence, course of disease, Hoehn-Yahr Rating, nutritional status, motor function, cognitive status and sleep quality were the influencing factors of frailty in PD patients (P<0.05). Conclusions Elderly PD patients are prone to frailty. Healthcare professionals should pay attention to early screening for frailty in this population and provide timely and effective interventions to prevent or delay the onset of frailty in patients.
The aim of this study is to investigate the protective effect of idebenone (IDE) combined with borneol (BO) against Parkinson’s disease (PD). In this study, wild-type AB zebrafish and transgenic Tg (vmat2: GFP) zebrafish with green fluorescence labeled dopamine neurons were used to establish the PD model with 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine hydrochloride (MPTP). Following drug treatment, the behavioral performance and dopamine neuron morphology of zebrafish were evaluated, and regulation of dopamine signaling pathway-related genes was determined using RT-qPCR. The results showed that IDE combined with BO improved the behavioral disorders of zebrafish such as bradykinesia and shortening movement distance, also effectively reversed the damage of MPTP-induced dopaminergic neurons. At the same time, the expression of dopamine synthesis and transportation-related genes was up-regulated, and the normal function of the signal transduction pathway was restored. The combination showed a better therapeutic effect compared to the IDE monotherapy group. This study reveals the protective mechanism of IDE combined with BO on the central nervous system for the first time, which provides an important experimental basis and theoretical reference for clinical combination strategy in PD treatment.
At present the parkinsonian rigidity assessment depends on subjective judgment of neurologists according to their experience. This study presents a parkinsonian rigidity quantification system based on the electromechanical driving device and mechanical impedance measurement method. The quantification system applies the electromechanical driving device to perform the rigidity clinical assessment tasks (flexion-extension movements) in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients, which captures their motion and biomechanical information synchronously. Qualified rigidity features were obtained through statistical analysis method such as least-squares parameter estimation. By comparing the judgments from both the parkinsonian rigidity quantification system and neurologists, correlation analysis was performed to find the optimal quantitative feature. Clinical experiments showed that the mechanical impedance has the best correlation (Pearson correlation coefficient r = 0.872, P < 0.001) with the clinical unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale (UPDRS) rigidity score. Results confirmed that this measurement system is capable of quantifying parkinsonian rigidity with advantages of simple operation and effective assessment. In addition, the mechanical impedance can be adopted to help doctors to diagnose and monitor parkinsonian rigidity objectively and accurately.
Objective To systematically review the efficacy and safety of CoenzymeQ10 for Parkinson’s disease. Methods Databases including PubMed, The Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2015), EMbase, CBM, CNKI, WanFang Data and VIP were searched from inception to August 2015, to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about CoenzymeQ10 for Parkinson’s disease. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software. Results A total of 5 RCTs involving 981 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, a) As for recently effectiveness, CoenzymeQ10 2 400 mg group was superior to the placebo group in total UPDRS score change (MD=1.09, 95%CI 0.94 to 1.24, P < 0.000 01), UPDRS-I score change (MD=0.19, 95%CI 0.17 to 0.21, P < 0.000 01), UPDRS-II score change (MD=0.27, 95%CI 0.21 to 0.32, P < 0.000 01), UPDRS-III score change (MD=0.65, 95%CI 0.54 to 0.76, P < 0.000 01), Hoehn & Yahr score change (MD=0.05, 95%CI 0.04 to 0.06, P < 0.000 01), and Schwab England score change (MD= –0.87, 95%CI –1.02 to –0.72, P < 0.000 01). b) As for long-term effectiveness, there were no differences between two groups, except that the UPDRS-II score change of CoenzymeQ10 1 200 mg group was superior to the placebo group. c) As for adverse reactions, there were no statistical differences between two groups except that the incidence of cholesterol of the CoenzymeQ10 600 mg group and incidence of diarrhea of the CoenzymeQ10 2 400 mg group were lower than that of the placebo group. Conclusion Current evidence shows that, the dosage of 2 400 mg/d CoenzymeQ10 is effective and safe for early Parkinson’s disease. Due to the limited quality and quantity of included studies, more higher quality studies are needed to verify the above conclusion.