20 years before symptoms: Signs of Parkinson's disease discovered

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Scientists have discovered early signs of Parkinson's disease, which appear 15-20 years before the first symptoms of the disease appear.

According to researchers from King's College London, their discovery may help develop new methods of combating the disease, but additional research will be needed for this.

Parkinson's disease is a slowly progressive chronic neurological disease that is common in older people. Among the main symptoms are tremors and slow movements, and the disease can also cause depression, sleep and memory problems.

It is believed that the disease is directly related to insufficient dopamine production – its level in the brains of patients is significantly lower than in healthy people.

However, researchers have concluded that the first signals of the disease may be changes in the production not of dopamine, but of serotonin.

Scientists studied brain scans of 14 people – all of them have mutations in the sequence of the alpha-synuclein protein, which dramatically increases the risk of Parkinson's disease.