A new European project to decipher the early progression of Parkinson's disease
A new European project, entitled “HISTOPARK - MRI-based in vivo histology of disease progression in early stage PD”, won by Gilles Vandewalle and Pierre Maquet. obtained by Gilles Vandewalle and Pierre Maquet, begins on April 1. The project, funded to the tune of €200,000 for ULiège, will be carried out in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig (project coordinator), the University of Amsterdam, the University of Pécs, the Université Paris-Sorbonne and McGill University. The aim of the project is to gain a better understanding of Parkinson's disease and its clinical stages.
The early stage of Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by dysfunction of the dopaminergic system, intracellular deposits of the protein synuclein and iron deposits, and neuronal loss in the small brain nuclei involved in regulating sleep and wakefulness. This is probably why REM sleep disorders are among the earliest preclinical signs of PD progression, while restless legs syndrome, often accompanied by periodic limb movements during sleep, is associated with an increased risk of PD. The pattern and preclinical spread of PD, however, remain largely unknown. To a large extent, this fragmentary knowledge is due to the fact that non-invasive neuroimaging methods are not well suited to tracking disease progression in the brain's small subcortical nuclei.
HISTOPARK is an interdisciplinary project that aims to combine state-of-the-art developments in ultra-high resolution MRI at 7 Tesla with cutting-edge sleep and genetics research to elucidate subcortical nuclei degeneration in preclinical PD and associate them with alterations in REM sleep as well. The aim is to elucidate the subtle anatomical changes in the substantia nigra, locus coeruleus and hypothalamus, which lie at the heart of PD, that are associated with sleep in healthy individuals at risk of developing PD, as well as in patients with REM sleep disorder, restless legs syndrome and PD.
HISTOPARK is the continuation of an earlier project involving Drs. Vandewalle and Maquet (IRONSLEEP - JPND 2022). Two new players (Paris-Sorbonne and McGill) have joined the project, as well as new brain structures (hypothalamus) and new modeling techniques that will benefit from the advances made in IRONSLEEP to better understand the progression of PD neuropathology in its presymptomatic stages. The project also aims to provide clinicians with new tools for detecting PD by transposing the results obtained with the 7T to clinical practice, including data collected by the 3T MRI available in clinics. HISTOPARK aims to identify new biomarkers of the risk of developing PD, and even new therapeutic avenues. The researchers hope to be able to propose new biomarkers for PD and the risk of developing the disease.
