A Sensor-Based Platform for Early-Stage Parkinson's Disease Monitoring.

Biosensing platforms have gained much attention in clinical practice screening thousands of samples simultaneously for the accurate detection of important markers in various diseases for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. Herein, a framework for the design of an innovative methodological approach combined with data processing and appropriate software in order to implement a complete diagnostic system for Parkinson's disease exploitation is presented. The integrated platform consists of biochemical and peripheral sensor platforms for measuring biological and biometric parameters of examinees, a central collection and management unit along with a server for storing data, and a decision support system for patient's state assessment regarding the occurrence of the disease. The suggested perspective is oriented on data processing and experimental implementation and can provide a powerful holistic evaluation of personalized monitoring of patients or individuals at high risk of manifestation of the disease.

A Sensor-Based Perspective in Early-Stage Parkinson's Disease: Current State and the Need for Machine Learning Processes.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder associated with dysfunction of dopaminergic neurons in the brain, lack of dopamine and the formation of abnormal Lewy body protein particles. PD is an idiopathic disease of the nervous system, characterized by motor and nonmotor manifestations without a discrete onset of symptoms until a substantial loss of neurons has already occurred, enabling early diagnosis very challenging. Sensor-based platforms have gained much attention in clinical practice screening various biological signals simultaneously and allowing researchers to quickly receive a huge number of biomarkers for diagnostic and prognostic purposes. The integration of machine learning into medical systems provides the potential for optimization of data collection, disease prediction through classification of symptoms and can strongly support data-driven clinical decisions. This work attempts to examine some of the facts and current situation of sensor-based approaches in PD diagnosis and discusses ensemble techniques using sensor-based data for developing machine learning models for personalized risk prediction. Additionally, a biosensing platform combined with clinical data processing and appropriate software is proposed in order to implement a complete diagnostic system for PD monitoring.

Development of a Protein Biochip Platform for Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder, characterized by severe motor symptoms which lead to progressive weakness of motor function caused by prominent loss of dopamine-secreting neurons within the substantia nigra. Compelling neuropathological evidence reveals the accumulation of insoluble protein aggregates, such as α-synuclein and tau, which are important hallmarks of the disease. Protein biochips have great potential to be powerful tools for clinical diagnostics, whereas novel sensing methods implementing biosensors for protein quantification in body fluids are highly required. Herein, the development of a device using a thin film of conductive polymer acid-doped polyaniline that can detect specific biomolecules is examined. The polymer is shown to change conductivity in the presence of proteins, so this direct chemical to electric transduction can be used to quantify concentration alterations. The fabrication of such a device is proposed, so that it can be implemented in rapid screening tests as part of an integrated holistic point-of-care diagnostics model that brings together a multidisciplinary healthcare team of PD experts.