Neurodegeneration becomes one of the most commonly diagnosed dysfunctions with no certain cure or successful therapy. Projections indicate that, by 2050 over 150M people will be suffering. Neurodegenerative diseases have a greater chance of affecting individuals with the age of 65 years or older. The final product which is a fibrillar structure of the protein is often found in the form of plaques in brains of persons having Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and many other neurological diseases.
Disease development is related to molecular machinery where mistakes in protein functioning lead to misfolding and aggregation. The consensus is that neurodegeneration starts years before clinical symptoms occur when smaller oligomers start to aggregate. It is accepted that formation of the specific oligomer structures may cause toxicity in terms of neurodegeneration progression.
Photonics technology has the accurate sensitivity for early stage amyloid aggregates detection and light can be used to penetrate non-invasively the tissue. That can be used for diagnostics for patients with mild cognitive problems.
The UPRECON project was relevant to human medicine for the diagnosis and successful treatment of neurodegenerative diseases in an increasingly aging population worldwide and particularly in developed countries. Finding non-invasive methods for detection of early stage neurodegeneration before clinical symptoms occur is critical for longevity in good health. The idea of the project was to examine laser-based methods that could be developed as diagnostic tools that will not be harmful to patients since the applied light will be in the optically transparent window for living organisms.
The overall objectives were focused on detecting early stage amyloidic structures. The key questions were how to develop diagnostic tools capable of detecting structures prone for neurodegeneration and possibly how to differentiate the toxic species by using photonic methods.
