A study, the results of which were published Thursday, confirmed that the accumulation of the “alpha-synuclein” protein in the brain is indeed linked to certain forms of Parkinson ’s disease, which may open the way for early diagnosis of this disease.

The study, published in the journal "The Lancet Neurology" and supervised by American neurologist Andrew Sideroff, concluded that the presence of elevated levels of this protein in the cerebrospinal fluid "helps with great accuracy (in determining) the typical forms of Parkinson's disease."

Parkinson's, along with Alzheimer's, is one of the major diseases affecting the brain. However, it is still largely unknown the cause of this malignant injury, which gradually loses the patient's ability to move.

However, several factors have been linked to this disease. In this context, it has been known for years that patients often have alpha-synuclein in the brain.

This new study, the first of its kind conducted on hundreds of patients, confirmed that monitoring the presence of this protein at high levels can largely reflect a person's Parkinson's disease.

However, the results are not equal in accuracy. Patients who carry a gene mutation known as LRRK2, which is associated with certain forms of Parkinson's disease, do not have these lumps systematically.

However, we are still a long way from having a "biological" test for Parkinson's disease, which is currently diagnosed only by its symptoms.

In particular, it will be necessary to determine if the technique works well with blood tests, which are much easier to perform than those for cerebrospinal fluid.

But this study "lays the foundations for the biological diagnosis of Parkinson's disease," according to a comment also published in "The Lancet Neurology" by neurologists Daniela Berg and Christine Klein, who were not involved in the research.

And the two doctors considered that the results of the study prove that alpha-synuclein protein "changes the equation in diagnosis, research and clinical trials for Parkinson's disease."

They also pointed out that what is particularly interesting is that the researchers also detected a high concentration of this protein in patients who had early signs of Parkinson's disease, especially a weak sense of smell, without proving this.