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SynapCell and Motac Neuroscience Discover New Biomarker of Parkinson’s Disease Progression
This discovery, which combined Motac’s disease modeling and SynapCell’s EEG phenotyping capabilities, has been presented in a scientific communication during the SfN’s Neuroscience 2019 Annual Meeting in Chicago.
SynapCell’s Cue® state-of-the-art EEG methodologies have successfully highlighted aberrant Beta oscillations (BetaPark) as an in vivo biomarker to assess pharmacodynamics of anti-PD and anti-dyskinetic drug candidates in symptomatic rat models of PD since 2013. BetaPark has since then enabled the pharmaceutical industry to select their most promising anti-PD compounds and to secure their future clinical efficacy trials.
“Neuronal degeneration begins years before clinical symptoms of Parkinson’s appear. And until now there has been no reliable animal models with relevant biomarkers to track disease progression and screen novel therapies,” says Yann Roche, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer at SynapCell, “With BetaPark [evo], we are proud to announce the identification of the first EEG biosignature to address the evolution of Parkinson’s disease and support pharmaceutical companies in developing neuroprotective strategies using objective, accurate and longitudinal metrics over time.”
Research conducted through this partnership demonstrated the progressive rise of aberrant Beta synchronization over 12 weeks, alongside with disease progression in the clinically-relevant Alpha-Synuclein rat model.
A correlation between neuron loss in the substantia nigra and the increase of BetaPark power was found (data not shown here). Moreover, when treated with L-DOPA, animals revealed a statistically significant decrease of BetaPark power, confirming that the biomarker is pharmacosensitive to this standard-of-care.
“The powerful combination of Motac’s excellence in Parkinson’s modeling and SynapCell’s Cue® technology has propelled the drug discovery paradigm forward for Parkinson’s disease,” says Erwan Bézard, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at Motac Neuroscience. “We foresee an unprecedented translational power in neuroprotective and symptomatic studies with the synergies of state-of-the-art disease modeling and EEG power analysis in the rat modeling human Parkinson’s pathophysiology.”
BetaPark [evo] represents a clinically meaningful endpoint for the validation of neuroprotective experimental therapeutics, calling for a clinical validation of this surrogate biomarker for neurodegenerative disorders.