PLATELET FUNCTIONALITY FOR EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF PARKINSON'S DISEASE

Method for diagnosing Parkinson's disease based on detecting very low serotonin levels in patients' platelets. Initial studies have not found normal serotonin levels in patients, whether or not they were treated with L-DOPA. Similarly, the platelets of patients have impaired their ability to accumulate serotonin. This condition seems to be due to a deficient capacity of the secretory vesicles of the platelets of the patients to accumulate biogenic amines. Given that the biological mechanisms underlying this problem are common in platelets and in dopaminergic neurons, this could explain (given the toxicity of dopamine and its metabolites when they are free in the cytosol) the progressive death of these neurons in Parkinson's disease. Since the affectation of the uptake mechanisms is due to problems in the proteins that mediate their accumulation, this functional failure probably precedes the appearance of the symptoms of the disease by several years. The very early detection of problems in the management of serotonin in platelets can detect possible patients early enough to establish specific measures of neuroprotection.