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Higher zinc concentrations in hair of Parkinson’s disease are associated with psychotic complications and depression

  • Neurology and Preclinical Neurological Studies - Original Article
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Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is classically considered a motor disease; however, several non-motor symptoms are also present, including psychiatric complaints. In recent decades, the metals Ca, Fe, and Zn have gained prominence as potential etiologic factors in motoric signs of PD. However, metal alterations could be associated with the non-motor symptoms of PD. We wished to correlate the levels of these metals with the co-occurrence of depression, anxiety, and psychotic symptoms in PD patients. To this end, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, and the Scales for Outcomes in Parkinson’s disease-Psychiatric Complications (SCOPA-PC) were implemented to evaluate mood disorders and psychiatric complications. Flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) was used to assess concentrations of Ca, Fe, and Zn in hair samples collected from 22 clinically diagnosed PD patients, which represented the entire cohort of accessible patients in a Brazilian health registry, and 33 healthy individuals. While Ca and Fe alterations were not found to be associated with psychiatric complaints in the PD group, significantly higher levels of Zn were correlated in PD patients with depression and some psychotic symptoms. Within individual domains of the SCOPA-PC, significantly higher levels of Zn were correlated with the presence of hallucination, illusion, and paranoid ideation when compared to controls and PD patients who did not present these symptoms. Although our sample size is small and findings need to be replicated in larger and heterogeneous populations, our results provide a new perspective on the use of monitoring of Zn levels as a potential biomarker of psychiatric complaints, and may be useful in the development of more effective therapeutic approaches for the management of PD patients with co-occurrence of psychiatric disorders.

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Acknowledgements

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil for funding support of a Ph.D Grant to Altair Brito dos Santos.

Funding

This work was financially supported by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Brazil. Grant Numbers (99999.012934/2013-05).

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Correspondence to Kristi A. Kohlmeier.

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We are the first to show that Zn alterations in PD patients are associated with psychiatric symptoms frequently seen in this disease and the first to provide an easy clinical chemistry assay combining hair samples and FAAS to evaluate Zn levels in PD patients and to correlate levels with mild psychiatric disorders.

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Dos Santos, A.B., Bezerra, M.A., Rocha, M.E. et al. Higher zinc concentrations in hair of Parkinson’s disease are associated with psychotic complications and depression. J Neural Transm 126, 1291–1301 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-019-02041-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-019-02041-9

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