Mapping the brain

Each year 10,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. This neurological condition causes tremors, slowness of movement and stiff muscles, making it difficult to walk, write or talk.

There is currently no cure but Diamond Light Source, the UK’s synchrotron, is helping scientists better understand the brain’s chemistry – and this could help early diagnosis and the development of new treatments.

The disease results from the loss of nerve cells in a part of the brain called the substantia nigra. These cells produce the chemical dopamine, which allows messages to be sent to areas of the brain that co-ordinate movement.

3D model of Diamond

It is also known that people with Parkinson’s have abnormally high levels of iron in the brain and researchers from Keele University, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, were able to investigate this condition at Diamond, with the University of Florida.

Funded by STFC and the Wellcome Trust, Diamond is a doughnut shaped particle accelerator. Electrons close to the speed of light produce intense beams of light, or synchrotron radiation, that can illuminate and reveal the structure of matter.

By using a technique called microfocus spectroscopy, the researchers could map the distribution of iron in healthy and diseased parts of the brain and obtain information about how the iron is stored at different stages of the disease, without changing the distribution or form of the iron.

“Improving our understanding of the biochemical aspects of the disease,” said Dr Joanna Collingwood, the project’s lead researcher from Keele University, “should in the long term provide potential openings for early MRI detection and diagnosis.”

“Early diagnosis is key,” says Dr Collingwood, “because by the time a typical individual presents symptoms of the disease, chemical changes have already caused significant cell death.”

• Parkinson's affects around 4 million people worldwide.
  
  
• 1 in 500 people in the UK have Parkinson’s disease and up to 7 million people are touched by the disease in some way. There is no cure but drugs are the main treatment to control the symptoms and maintain quality of life.