The Latest Articles on Biomarkers of Neurodegenerative Diseases
Our staff editors continue to share exciting, interesting, and thought-provoking reading material in the recommended articles series.
This week, we would like to share several latest articles on Biomarkers of Neurodegenerative Diseases.
Title: Fluid biomarkers for the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases
Authors: Matthew Luebke, Manisha Parulekar, Florian P. Thomas
Type: Review
Abstract:
In this review, we evaluate the role of fluid biomarkers related to neurodegenerative diseases. Such conditions present diagnostic challenges due to phenotypic heterogeneity, longitudinal evolution, overlap between diagnostic entities, and variability in progression. Biomarkers can potentially provide insight into diagnosis, progression, prognostication, and treatment efficacy. This review covers recent advances in fluid biomarkers including beta-amyloid, tau protein, neurofilament light chain, alpha-synuclein and glial fibrillary protein, and briefly touches upon imaging biomarkers. For each biomarker, we discuss the pathophysiological correlates, clinical uses, accuracy, and limitations.
Access this article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bionps.2023.100062
Title: Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease: Past, Present and Future Clinical Use
Authors: Joanna E. Georgakas, Matthew D. Howe, Louisa I. Thompson, Natalie M. Riera, Meghan C. Riddle
Type: Research Article
Abstract:
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease and the leading cause of dementia worldwide. AD is associated with several neuropathologic changes including the progressive accumulation of extracellular amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques, intracellular neurofibrillary tau tangles, neuroinflammation, cerebral small vessel disease and neurodegeneration, many of which are known to begin years before the onset of clinical symptoms. As such, there is a growing interest in developing biomarkers that can be used to detect these changes in the brains of at-risk individuals to facilitate earlier and more accurate diagnosis. This may allow for earlier intervention with disease-modifying therapies to slow the progression of irreversible neurodegeneration and improve quality of life. The current review seeks to provide a concise overview of the neuropathology and genetics underlying AD, and then summarize the most promising clinically available and experimental biomarkers of AD. These include structural neuroimaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and blood-based assays. Multiple potential clinical uses for these biomarkers are then described, including screening at-risk populations for disease, aiding in differential diagnosis of dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), monitoring the impact of lifestyle intervention and disease modifying therapies, identification and treatment of neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia, and aiding in planning for end of life care. Finally, additional areas of future research are discussed, including replication of biomarker studies in more diverse patient cohorts, characterization of real-world clinical and psychological impacts of biomarker testing, as well as novel biomarkers currently under investigation.
Access this article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bionps.2023.100063
Title: Alzheimer’s disease: Insights and new prospects in disease pathophysiology, biomarkers and disease-modifying drugs
Authors: Ana R. Monteiro, Daniel J. Barbosa, Fernando Remião, Renata Silva
Type: Review
Abstract:
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most prevalent neurodegenerative diseases that affect millions of people worldwide, with both prevalence and incidence increasing with age. It is characterized by cognitive decline associated, specifically, with degeneration of cholinergic neurons. The problem of this disease is even more fundamental as the available therapies remain fairly limited and mainly focused on symptoms’ relief. Although the aetiology of the disease remains elusive, two main pathological hallmarks are described: i) presence of neurofibrillary tangles formed by unfolded protein aggregates (hyperphosphorylated Tau protein) and ii) presence of extracellular aggregates of amyloid-beta peptide. Given the complexity surrounding the pathogenesis of the disease, several potential targets have been highlighted and interrelated upon its progression, such as oxidative stress and the accumulation of metal ions. Thus, advances have been made on the development of innovative multitarget therapeutical compounds to delay the disease progression and restore cell function.
This review focuses the ongoing research on new insights and emerging disease-modifying drugs for AD treatment. Furthermore, classical and novel potential biomarkers for early diagnosis of the disease, and their role in assisting on the improvement of targeted therapies will also be approached.
Access this article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcp.2023.115522
Title: Molecularly imprinted polymers for the recognition of biomarkers of certain neurodegenerative diseases
Authors: Greta Pilvenyte, Vilma Ratautaite, Raimonda Boguzaite, Urte Samukaite-Bubniene, Deivis Plausinaitis, Almira Ramanaviciene, Mikhael Bechelany, Arunas Ramanavicius
Type: Review
Abstract:
The appearance of the biomarkers in body fluids like blood, urine, saliva, tears, etc. can be used for the identification of many diseases. This article aimed to summarize the studies about electrochemical biosensors with molecularly imprinted polymers as sensitive and selective layers on the electrode to detect protein-based biomarkers of such neurodegenerative diseases as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson's disease, and stress. The main attention in this article is focused on the detection methods of amyloid-β oligomers and p-Tau which are representative biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease, α-synuclein as the biomarker of Parkinson's disease, and α-amylase and lysozyme as the biomarkers of stress using molecular imprinting technology. The research methods, the application of different electrodes, the influence of the polymers, and the established detection limits are reviewed and compared.
Access this article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpba.2023.115343
Title: Role of hippocampal subfields in neurodegenerative disease progression analyzed with a multi-scale attention-based network
Authors: Hongbo Xu, Yan Liu, Ling Wang, Xiangzhu Zeng, Yingying Xu, Zeng Wang
Type: Review
Abstract:
Background and Objective
Both Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD) are progressive neurodegenerative diseases. Early identification is very important for the prevention and intervention of their progress. Hippocampus plays a crucial role in cognition, in which there are correlations between atrophy of Hippocampal subfields and cognitive impairment in neurodegenerative diseases. Exploring biomarkers in the prediction of early cognitive impairment in AD and PD is significant for understanding the progress of neurodegenerative diseases.
Methods
A multi-scale attention-based deep learning method is proposed to perform computer-aided diagnosis for neurodegenerative disease based on Hippocampal subfields. First, the two dimensional (2D) Hippocampal Mapping Image (HMI) is constructed and used as input of three branches of the following network. Second, the multi-scale module and attention module are integrated into the 2D residual network to improve the diversity of the extracted features and capture significance of various voxels for classification. Finally, the role of Hippocampal subfields in the progression of different neurodegenerative diseases is analyzed using the proposed method.
Results
Classification experiments between normal control (NC), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), AD, PD with normal cognition (PD-NC) and PD with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) are carried out using the proposed method. Experimental results show that subfields subiculum, presubiculum, CA1, and molecular layer are strongly correlated with cognitive impairment in AD and MCI, subfields GC-DG and fimbria are sensitive in detecting early stage of cognitive impairment in MCI, subfields CA3, CA4, GC-DG, and CA1 show significant atrophy in PD. For exploring the role of Hippocampal subfields in PD cognitive impairment, we find that left parasubiculum, left HATA and left presubiculum could be important biomarkers for predicting conversion from PD-NC to PD-MCI.
Conclusion
The proposed multi-scale attention-based network can effectively discover the correlation between subfields and neurodegenerative diseases. Experimental results are consistent with previous clinical studies, which will be useful for further exploring the role of Hippocampal subfields in neurodegenerative disease progression.
Access this article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2023.103370
