Lena Brundin of Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine was part of a research team that measured inflammatory markers found in cerebrospinal fluid samples of Parkinson’s patients and members of a control group.<\/p>\n “The degree of neuroinflammation was significantly associated with more severe depression, fatigue, and cognitive impairment<\/strong> even after controlling for factors such as age, gender and disease duration,” said Brundin, an associate professor in the college and a researcher with the Van Andel Institute.<\/p>\n “By investigating associations between inflammatory markers and non-motor symptoms we hope to gain further insight into this area, which in turn could lead to new treatment options.”<\/p>\n The results of the study were published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity<\/em>.<\/p>\n Inflammation in the brain long has been suspected to be involved in the development of Parkinson’s disease, specifically in non-motor symptoms such as depression, fatigue and cognitive impairment. Recent research suggests inflammation could drive cell death and that developing new drugs that target this inflammation might slow disease progression.<\/strong><\/p>\n Parkinson’s disease is the second most common degenerative disorder<\/strong> of the central nervous system; the causes of the disease and its development are not yet fully understood.<\/p>\n “The few previous studies investigating inflammatory markers in the cerebrospinal fluid of Parkinson’s patients have been conducted on comparatively small numbers of subjects, and often without a healthy control group for comparison<\/strong>,” Brundin said.<\/p>\n In the study, 87 Parkinson’s patients were enrolled between 2008 and 2012. For the control group, 37 individuals were recruited. Participants underwent a general physical exam and routine blood screening. Researchers looked at the following markers:<\/strong> C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, eotaxin, interferon gamma-induced protein-10, monocyte chemotactic protein-1 and macrophage inflammatory protein 1-\u00df.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The study was carried out in collaboration with researchers from Lund University in Sweden, Sk\u00e5ne University Hospital in Sweden and the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Michigan State University media release: Reversing inflammation in the fluid surrounding the brain’s cortex may provide a solution to the complex riddle of Parkinson’s, according to researchers who… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,6,336],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15665"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15669,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15665\/revisions\/15669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"brain](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/brain_scan.jpg\")
<\/a>Reversing inflammation in the fluid surrounding the brain’s cortex may provide a solution to the complex riddle of Parkinson’s<\/strong>, according to researchers who have found a link between pro-inflammatory biomarkers and the severity of symptoms such as fatigue, depression and anxiety in patients with the chronic disease.<\/p>\n