“To develop the test, scientists at UCL and the University of Göttingen used a machine learning algorithm to spot a signature pattern of eight blood proteins in patients with Parkinson’s. The algorithm was then able to predict future Parkinson’s in other patients who provided blood samples. In one patient, the disorder was correctly predicted more than seven years before symptoms arose. ‘It is possible that it could go back even further,’ said Dr Jenny Hällqvist, at the UCL Institute of Neurology, and first author on the study published in Nature Communications.

Prof Roger Barker, a consultant neurologist who specialises in Parkinson’s at the University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke’s hospital, said if validated by other groups, the test raised the possibility of diagnosing Parkinson’s at the very earliest stages, enabling patients to be enrolled in clinical trials when the disease process had just begun.”

From The Guardian.