Newswise — With a $5.5 million, five-year award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers at Case Western Reserve University will seek to systemize new diagnostic tests for dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s disease dementia—together the second-most-common dementias after Alzheimer’s disease.
Establishing quick and reliable testing methods for these neurological conditions—using tissue samples from non-traditional sources, such as skin, nasal mucosa, or the colon—could eventually allow doctors to diagnose patients earlier and more easily.
Researchers will use real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC), a relatively-new technology developed in Japan, to hone the identification of telltale protein deposits in areas of the body outside of where the disorders develop in the brain.
The results could eventually help doctors track the levels…
