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Levels of HVA, 5-HIAA, and MHPG in the CSF of vascular parkinsonism compared to Parkinson’s disease and controls

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Abstract

The neurochemical abnormalities underlying vascular parkinsonism (VP) have not been well characterised. A better understanding may help to optimize pharmacological interventions. Since VP patients generally have a poorer response to l-Dopa than Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients, we investigated whether levels of relevant CSF neurotransmitter metabolites may be differentially altered in VP and PD and assessed the potential of neurotransmitter metabolites as biomarkers. We compared CSF levels of homovanillic acid (HVA), 5-hydroxyindolacetic acid, and 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylethyleneglycol, in 16 VP patients, 57 PD patients and 60 non-neurological controls. We found that levels of HVA were reduced in PD compared with both VP and controls but did not differ significantly between VP and controls indicating that dopamine deficiency was less pronounced in VP.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the technicians of the Department of Laboratory Medicine (LGEM) for CSF analysis.

Disclosures

Megan Herbert reports no disclosures.

Bea Kuiperij reports no disclosures.

Bastiaan Bloem received honoraria from serving on the scientific advisory board for Boehringer Ingelheim, Teva, Glaxo-Smith-Kline and Novartis, and received research support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, the Michael J Fox Foundation, the Prinses Beatrix Foundation, the Stichting Internationaal Parkinson Fonds and the Alkemade Keuls fonds.

Marcel Verbeek receives funding from Joint Programming Neurodegenerative Disease, Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, American Alzheimer Association, Van Alkemade Keuls fonds and Center for Translational Molecular Medicine.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest in relation to this study.

Ethical standard

Samples selected from our CSF biobank databases were collected for routine purposes according to standard protocols. All subjects gave their informed consent at the time of lumbar puncture including later use for scientific purposes. CSF sampling was performed in accordance with the research protocols approved by the institutional review board in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, P.O. Box 9101, 6500, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Megan K. Herbert, H. Bea Kuiperij, Bastiaan R. Bloem & Marcel M. Verbeek

  2. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Megan K. Herbert, H. Bea Kuiperij & Marcel M. Verbeek

Authors
  1. Megan K. Herbert
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  2. H. Bea Kuiperij
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  3. Bastiaan R. Bloem
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  4. Marcel M. Verbeek
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marcel M. Verbeek.

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415_2013_7126_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Figure S1. Levels of neurotransmitters metabolites in CSF. CSF 5-HIAA (A) and HVA (B) levels were higher in VP patients compared with PD patients but no differences in MHPG levels (C) were observed (TIFF 695 kb)

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Herbert, M.K., Kuiperij, H.B., Bloem, B.R. et al. Levels of HVA, 5-HIAA, and MHPG in the CSF of vascular parkinsonism compared to Parkinson’s disease and controls. J Neurol 260, 3129–3133 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-013-7126-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-013-7126-5

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