CIEN scientist Michel Grothe leads study identifying clues to cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease

CIEN researcher Dr Michel Grothe has led a study that has identified new neuroimaging biomarkers fundamental to understanding cognitive impairment and dementia in Parkinson's disease. This work, publ Psychiatry, has been developed in collaboration with the Institute of Biomedicine of Seville (IBiS) and the Virgen del Rocio University Hospital, and has involved the participation of several international institutions.

At CIEN Foundation, we are proud to contribute to research on the neurodegenerative mechanisms involved in cognitive impairment associated with Parkinson's disease. Dr Grothe has been a key player in a study that reveals new findings on the processes leading to dementia in these patients, highlighting the essential role of neuroimaging in the early identification of biomarkers.

The study, recently published in Molecular Psychiatry, has been led by Dr. Michel Grothe, together with Dr. Pablo Mir, from IBiS, and has Dr. Miguel Labrador-Espinosa as first author. It has been developed at the Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBiS), in collaboration with the Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío and other international centres. Thanks to Dr. Grothe's experience in neuroimaging, the research has demonstrated that atrophy of the basal cholinergic forebrain is a key indicator of cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease, establishing a correlation between the degeneration of this brain structure and the reduction of cortical activity.

At CIEN, we are committed to neuroimaging as a fundamental tool for understanding and combating neurodegenerative diseases. Dr Grothe's collaboration with international teams has been instrumental in validating these findings in a second sample of patients at Aarhus University Hospital (Denmark), where an innovative neuroimaging technique was used to confirm the loss of cholinergic endings in the brains of those affected. ‘Our results provide, for the first time, in vivo evidence that the reduction of brain activity in the cortex, associated with basal forebrain degeneration, coincides with the loss of cholinergic connections. Both phenomena play a key and interconnected role in the cognitive impairment of Parkinson's disease,’ explains Dr Michel Grothe.

These findings reinforce the importance of neuroimaging biomarkers in the early identification of patients at increased risk of cognitive decline, which could facilitate the development of more effective treatments from the earliest stages of the disease. At CIEN we continue to promote research in neuroscience to advance our knowledge and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, committed to a more personalised medicine based on scientific evidence.

Article reference: Silva- Rodríguez J, Labrador-Espinosa MA, Castro-Labrador S, Muñoz Delgado L, Franco Rosado P, Castellano-Guerrero AM, Macías García D, Jesús S, Adarmes-Gómez AD, Castillo F, Martín-Rodríguez JF, García-Solís D, Roldán-Lora F, Mir P, Grothe MJ. Imaging biomarkers of cortical neurodegeneration undelying cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2025 Jan 31. Online ahead of print.