OSCR

Improving Parkinson's disease diagnosis by non-invasive detection of retinal biomarkers in MPTP monkeys using ERG and pupillometry.

Overview

Authors: Jonathan Munro1, Andrée-Anne Lavigne1, Shirley Fecteau1, Thérèse Di Paolo2, Marc Hébert1, Martin Parent1
  1. CERVO Brain Research Center, Université Laval,Quebec City, QC Canada
  2. CHU de Québec Research Center, Université Laval,Quebec City, QC Canada
Institutions: Université Laval (Canada)
Journal: NPJ Parkinson's disease, volume 12, issue 1, article 211
Dates: received 5 February 2026; accepted 11 May 2026; published online 3 June 2026
Type: Research article · Language: English
License: CC BY
Identifiers: DOI 10.1038/s41531-026-01391-y · PMID 42236736 · PMCID PMC13538655 · OpenAlex W7163398595
Open access: gold, a free copy (OpenAlex)
Status: data only
Categories: other (modality), non-human primate (organism), Parkinson's (population), clinical / translational (subfield)
Methods: Spectral & time-frequency, Statistics, Evoked potentials, fMRI & imaging, Smoothing, state filtering, decompositions, Physiology & signal measures
Keywords: Diseases, Neurology, Neuroscience
Topic: Parkinson's Disease Mechanisms and Treatments (Neurology, Medicine), according to OpenAlex
Funding: Mitacs (Mitacs accelerate #IT28655); Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC #538422-18); Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR PJT 470155); Canada Foundation for Innovation (CIF 42160); Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ-S, 268922)
Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 101 references in the paper

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) diagnosis is currently made by clinical observation of motor symptoms when around 50% of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta are already lost. Non-motor symptoms, such as vision problems, occur earlier during disease progression and could be caused by altered retinal functioning. Various techniques exist to detect retinal alterations and, therefore, could provide biomarkers for earlier diagnosis of PD. The aim of this project is to determine potential retinal biomarkers for PD by using electroretinography (ERG) and pupillometry. In vivo measurements were performed on four non-human primates, before and after they were rendered parkinsonian by administration of 1-méthyl-4-phényl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP), a neurotoxin that induces degeneration of dopamine neurons. ERG results showed a significant increase in photopic b-wave implicit time and reduced oscillatory potential (OP) amplitudes in both photopic and scotopic conditions following MPTP administration. The post-illumination pupillary response showed a consistently larger pupil diameter post-MPTP. Post-mortem examination revealed a significant thinning of the outer nuclear retinal layer. Tyrosine hydroxylase and melanopsin-containing cells were reduced in MPTP-intoxicated monkeys. Altogether, these results indicate that MPTP intoxication leads to functional retinal changes detectable by ERG and pupillometry, possibly attributed to cellular alterations.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper links to its data, not to its authors' code: see the Data section.

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Data

Datasets cited

Data availability

The raw datasets generated and/or analysed in this study are publicly available on Figshare: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.31817110.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 6 authors, 3 keywords, 5 funders, 101 references.

Cite

This paper

Munro, J., Lavigne, A.-A., Fecteau, S., Di Paolo, T., Hébert, M., & Parent, M. (2026). Improving Parkinson's disease diagnosis by non-invasive detection of retinal biomarkers in MPTP monkeys using ERG and pupillometry. NPJ Parkinson's disease, 12(1), 211. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-026-01391-y

BibTeX

@article{munro2026improving,
author = {Munro, Jonathan and Lavigne, Andrée-Anne and Fecteau, Shirley and Di Paolo, Thérèse and Hébert, Marc and Parent, Martin},
title = {{Improving Parkinson's disease diagnosis by non-invasive detection of retinal biomarkers in MPTP monkeys using ERG and pupillometry}},
journal = {NPJ Parkinson's disease},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
volume = {12},
number = {1},
pages = {211},
publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},
issn = {2373-8057},
doi = {10.1038/s41531-026-01391-y},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-026-01391-y},
pmid = {42236736},
pmcid = {PMC13538655}
}

RIS

TY - JOUR
AU - Munro, Jonathan
AU - Lavigne, Andrée-Anne
AU - Fecteau, Shirley
AU - Di Paolo, Thérèse
AU - Hébert, Marc
AU - Parent, Martin
TI - Improving Parkinson's disease diagnosis by non-invasive detection of retinal biomarkers in MPTP monkeys using ERG and pupillometry
T2 - NPJ Parkinson's disease
J2 - NPJ Parkinsons Dis
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/03
VL - 12
IS - 1
SP - 211
SN - 2373-8057
PB - Nature Publishing Group
DO - 10.1038/s41531-026-01391-y
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-026-01391-y
LA - en
ER -

CSL-JSON

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"language": "en",
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