Molecular Mechanisms and Clinical Manifestations of Catecholamine Dysfunction in the Eye in Parkinson’s Disease As a Basis for Developing Early Diagnosis

Abstract

This review provides information onthe non-motor peripheral manifestations of Parkinsons disease (PD) associated with a pathology of the visual analyzer and the auxiliary apparatus of the eye. The relationship between neurodegenerative processes that take place in the brain and in the eye opens new prospects to use preventive ophthalmologic examination todiagnose PD long before the characteristic motor symptoms appear. This will encourage the use of neuroprotective therapy, which stops, or at least slows down, neuronal death, instead of the current replacement therapy with dopamine agonists. Animportant result of an eye examination of patients with PD may be a non-invasive identification of new peripheral biomarkers manifesting themselvesas changes in the composition of the lacrimal fluid.