WCN 2021 | Time is brain in Parkinson’s disease

“Time is brain” is a phrase often used in emergency medicine. Brit Mollenhauer, MD, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany, discusses how it can also apply to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. For instance, a study demonstrated that seeding aggregation assays in cerebrospinal fluid are good indicators of early α-synuclein aggregation, up to 9 years before the manifestation of motor symptoms. Due to negative findings, clinical trials investigating potential disease-modifying therapies conducted in individuals with motor disease have been stopped. This highlights the importance of identifying Parkinson’s disease patients in the prodromal phase of the disease, before the onset of motor symptoms, with the aim of intervening to prevent disease manifestation and slow progression. This interview took place during the XXV World Congress of Neurology.