Clinical Characteristics, Iron Metabolism and Neuroinflammation: New Insight into Excessive Daytime Sleepiness in Parkinson's Disease

Background: To investigate the clinical characteristics, iron metabolism and neuroinflam-mation in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). Methods: We studied 379 patients with PD and 30 age-matched controls. All subjects were evaluated by Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) and a series of rating scales and were divided into PD-EDS and PD-NEDS groups according to ESS score. The concentrations of iron and iron-related proteins and inflammatory cytokines in both cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum were examined. Results: 1. The occurrence rate of EDS in total PD patients was 16.09%. 2. PD-EDS group had significantly severer disease stages, more severe motor and non-motor features of the disease. 3. In CSF, the concentrations of iron and IL-1 beta in the PD-EDS group were significantly higher and ferritin concentration was prominently lower when compared with the PD-NEDS group and the control group; ESS score was significantly associated with high concentrations of iron and IL-1 beta and low concentration of ferritin in the PD group. Iron concentration was positively correlated with IL-1 beta concentration in the PD-EDS group. 4. In serum, no changes were observed in iron and iron-related proteins and inflammatory cytokines among the three groups. Conclusion: EDS was a common symptom in PD patients. PD patients with EDS had more severe motor and some non-motor symptoms. Overloaded iron-relevant inflammation in the brain might be an underlying mechanism of PD-EDS.

Automated summary

The study found that excessive daytime sleepiness is a common symptom in patients with Parkinson's disease, which is associated with more severe motor and non-motor symptoms, and overloaded iron-relevant inflammation in the brain might be an underlying mechanism of PD-EDS.