VIDEO: Biomarkers can help predict neurological diseases decades earlier

PHILADELPHIA — Biomarkers are enabling the detection of neurological diseases up to 3 decades before a diagnosis would typically occur, Jane Paulsen, PhD FANA, says in this Healio video.

Paulsen, a professor in the department of neurology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, participated in an American Neurological Association annual meeting plenary session on prodromal neurologic disease, She was the principal investigator on the PREDICT-HD Huntington’s disease study and is now overseeing the PREVENT-HD study.

Paulsen told Healio that the University of Wisconsin is currently recruiting patients for the PREVENT-HD study, which will “help develop and refine the tools that can be used in clinical trials to measure the effectiveness of treatment before the disease impacts daily life,” according to the university’s website. “Some scientists think that treatments may be more likely to work when the brain is still healthy, rather than later in the disease when many brain cells are gone.”