Study suggests new way to diagnose Charcot disease

Charcot disease often takes time to diagnose. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis currently leads to death within 3 to 5 years of diagnosis. A study published this week suggests that the use of electroencephalography may lead to faster diagnosis.

Towards a better diagnosis of Charcot disease? This, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), affects 1,000 new people in France each year, according to the Brain Institute, a research center.

As the Medical Research Institute Insurm explains in a press release this Thursday, March 14, “ALS is difficult to diagnose.” This is explained by the fact that this neurodegenerative disease manifests itself in different ways in its initial stages and by the fact that according to Inserm “there is no specific biomarker for the disease”. Once diagnosed, this severe and debilitating degenerative disease leads to death within three to five years.

Researchers from the Strasbourg Biomedicine Research Center (Insurm-University of Strasbourg), the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the CNRS and the Sorbonne University therefore wanted to test the effectiveness of electroencephalography in diagnosing the disease. by Charcot. The results of this research were reported in a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

A future prognostic tool?

They show that in humans and animals suffering from Charcot disease, the interaction between two types of brain waves of different amplitudes and frequencies is “atypical,” explains Inserm.

“Not only was this imbalance seen in all subjects tested, but the scientists also showed that the more advanced the symptoms of the disease, the greater this imbalance,” adds the institute.

However, electroencephalography involves precisely detecting the brain’s electrical activity by recording its waves. “If these preliminary results are confirmed, electroencephalography may serve as a prognostic tool for patients already diagnosed to evaluate in the future, for example, the response to drug treatment, or even as a diagnostic tool in cases where symptoms indicate disease.” , Insurm states in its press release.

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