Association of αS-SAA kinetics with clinical scores in the clinical spectrum of Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease is characterized by the pathological aggregation and the consequent accumulation in the brain of a protein named alpha synuclein. We can check whether this protein is present in vivo (before autopsy) with a test performed on cerebrospinal fluid, called ‘α-synuclein seed amplification assay’. This test is not only able to verify if alpha synuclein pathology is present or not, but it has also the potential to investigate how much this protein has the pathological capability to aggregate. The potential of this test to predict signs and symptoms of the disease is currently being investigated. Therefore, we wanted to evaluate the correlation between this test and the clinical picture of 94 patients with Parkinson's disease, both cognitively unimpaired and impaired (both mild cognitive impairment and subjects with dementia). We observed that some measures of this test were associated with cognitive worsening over time. This is an important result because we can obtain in vivo prognostic information regarding cognitive worsening over time.