Parkinson’s disease in twins

Objective: To reevaluate concordance rates in 9 monozygotic (MZ) and 12 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs with PD 8 years after the initial study. Background: Longitudinal investigations increase accuracy in clinical diagnosis of PD. Methods: Follow-up by personal interview and clinical examination. Results: Concordance rates were not different between MZ (3/9) and DZ (5/12) twin pairs at follow-up, even when PD-associated dementia and isolated postural tremor were considered diagnostic of familial Lewy body parkinsonism. Evaluation of medical history, personality traits, and blink rate did not reveal putative early or premorbid parkinsonism in 9 co-twins who were motor-asymptomatic during the follow-up interval. However, these co-twins had reduced semantic fluency in comparison with a healthy control group of similar age. None of 7 co-twins without motor signs who underwent PET investigation 6 years previously showed signs of extrapyramidal disease at follow-up, but verbal memory continued to be reduced in 5 of these co-twins. Conclusion: Based on concordance rates only, the findings in our twin sample do not support a major genetic impact for the motor expression of PD.

[1]  W. Weiner,et al.  Cognitive impairments associated with early Parkinson's disease , 1989, Neurology.

[2]  P. Vieregge,et al.  Personality, depression, and premorbid lifestyle in twin pairs discordant for Parkinson’s disease , 1998, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[3]  R. Duvoisin.  The genetics of Parkinson's disease. A review. , 1993, Advances in neurology.

[4]  M. Folstein,et al.  Alzheimer's disease in the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council Registry of Aging Twin Veterans. III. Detection of cases, longitudinal results, and observations on twin concordance. , 1995, Archives of neurology.

[5]  A. E. Harding,et al.  Parkinson's disease in twins studied with 18F‐dopa and positron emission tomography , 1992, Neurology.

[6]  Georg Auburger,et al.  The ubiquitin pathway in Parkinson's disease , 1998, Nature.

[7]  Olaf Riess,et al.  AlaSOPro mutation in the gene encoding α-synuclein in Parkinson's disease , 1998, Nature Genetics.

[8]  B. Müller-Myhsok,et al.  A susceptibility locus for Parkinson's disease maps to chromosome 2p13 , 1998, Nature Genetics.

[9]  H P Ludin,et al.  Parkinson's disease in twins , 1992, Neurology.

[10]  K. Herholz,et al.  Discordant twins with Parkinson's disease: Positron emission tomography and early signs of impaired cognitive circuits , 1994, Annals of neurology.

[11]  A. Bentivoglio,et al.  Analysis of blink rate patterns in normal subjects , 1997, Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society.

[12]  E. Sullivan,et al.  Cognitive impairment in early, untreated Parkinson's disease and its relationship to motor disability. , 1991, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[13]  W. Rocca,et al.  Prion analogues and twin studies in Parkinson's disease , 1996, Neurology.

[14]  W. Gibb,et al.  The relevance of the Lewy body to the pathogenesis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease. , 1988, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[15]  Robert L. Nussbaum,et al.  Mutation in the α-Synuclein Gene Identified in Families with Parkinson's Disease , 1997 .

[16]  M. Hoehn,et al.  Parkinsonism , 1967, Neurology.

[17]  Y. Stern,et al.  Cognitive change following MPTP exposure , 1990, Neurology.

[18]  C. Marsden.  Parkinson's disease in twins. , 1987, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[19]  A. Rajput,et al.  Accuracy of Clinical Diagnosis in Parkinsonism — A Prospective Study , 1991, Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences / Journal Canadien des Sciences Neurologiques.

[20]  S. Minoshima,et al.  Mutations in the parkin gene cause autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism , 1998, Nature.

[21]  K. Kosaka,et al.  Consensus guidelines for the clinical and pathologic diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) , 1996, Neurology.

[22]  C. van Weel,et al.  Symptoms and duration of the prodromal phase in parkinson's disease , 1997, Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society.

[23]  L. Golbe,et al.  A clinical genetic study of Parkinson's disease , 1994, Neurology.

[24]  J. Kaprio,et al.  Parkinson's disease in a nationwide twin cohort , 1988, Neurology.

[25]  P. Thompson,et al.  Isolated tremor and disruption of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic system , 1992, Neurology.

[26]  C. Ward,et al.  Parkinson's disease in 65 pairs of twins and in a set of quadruplets , 1983, Neurology.

[27]  J S Rakshi,et al.  Measuring the rate of progression and estimating the preclinical period of Parkinson’s disease with [18F]dopa PET , 1998, Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry.

[28]  J. Schneider,et al.  Cognitive deficits precede motor deficits in a slowly progressing model of parkinsonism in the monkey. , 1995, Neurodegeneration : a journal for neurodegenerative disorders, neuroprotection, and neuroregeneration.

[29]  J. Saint-Cyr,et al.  Memory and learning in early Parkinson's disease: Evidence for a “frontal lobe syndrome” , 1990, Brain and Cognition.