They study how Parkinson's affects skin temperature
Several neurologists from Granada, led by Francisco Escamilla, Adolfo Mínguez, researchers from the ibs.GRANADA Biosanitary Research Institute, and Carlos Javier Madrid, have just published a scientific article in the journal Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, in an original work together with psychologists Emilio Gómez and Elvira Salazar, who already described the "Pinocchio effect", the increase in temperature of the nose when someone lied.
Along the same lines, doctors had the idea of "photographing" the temperature of the hands of Parkinson's patients and seeing how they respond when exposed to cold. It was found that the patients have an altered response to cold and that the temperature of the hands is asymmetric before exposure. This type of study could be useful in its diagnosis, especially in those in which the autonomic nervous system fails more.
“We are trying to validate this technique with patients who already have the diagnosis, that is, who already have tremor or other symptoms. This constitutes the pilot phase, but for the future we intend to reverse that order and for this simple method to be applied to initially distinguish Parkinson's from other diseases that mimic it, ”explains neurologist Francisco Escamilla, principal investigator of the study. "There are other diseases such as multiple sclerosis or diabetes that present this alteration in distal temperature, so thermography and the study of the specific patterns of Parkinson's patients can help us to advance specifically in this disease," Escamilla added.