A BREAKTHROUGH DISCOVERY

Scientists are developing a ‘teardrop’ test that could help identify people in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.

Powerful MRI scans reveal that patients with the disease do not have a distinctive teardrop mark in their brains – something observed in healthy people.

The discovery could help doctors to diagnose the degenerative brain disorder and track its progress.

Approximately 127,000 Britons, mostly aged 60 and over, are known to have Parkinson’s.

The condition destroys brain cells producing the chemical messenger dopamine in the part of the brain that controls movement. The disease can also cause memory loss.

Researchers at Nottingham University and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust believe they have found a biological marker that shows the presence of the disease in the brain.

Using imaging techniques, they compared the brains of Parkinson’s patients with those of healthy people, focusing on nigrosomes, clusters of dopamine-rich cells in part of the brain.

The findings, first published in the journal Neurology, showed that a telltale teardrop mark in the brains of healthy people was missing in Parkinson’s sufferers.

Professor Penny Gowland, who was involved in the study, called it ‘a breakthrough discovery’.

Researchers plan to develop a test that could be adapted to standard MRI scans.