{"id":235890,"date":"2026-04-25T02:24:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T07:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/blood-and-spinal-fluid-proteins-reveal-distinct-fingerprints-of-four-brain-diseases"},"modified":"2026-04-25T02:24:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T07:24:37","slug":"blood-and-spinal-fluid-proteins-reveal-distinct-fingerprints-of-four-brain-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/blood-and-spinal-fluid-proteins-reveal-distinct-fingerprints-of-four-brain-diseases","title":{"rendered":"Blood and spinal fluid proteins reveal distinct fingerprints of four brain diseases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/blood-and-spinal-fluid-proteins-reveal-distinct-fingerprints-of-four-brain-diseases.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at WashU Medicine have uncovered new molecular insights into Alzheimer\u2019s disease, Parkinson\u2019s disease and other forms of dementia by analyzing thousands of proteins in both cerebrospinal fluid and blood plasma. The study, led by Carlos Cruchaga, the Barbara Burton &amp; Reuben Morriss III Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and director of the NeuroGenomics and Informatics Center at WashU Medicine, represents one of the largest and most comprehensive multi-tissue analyses of proteins across multiple neurodegenerative diseases to date. The findings raise the possibility of developing blood tests for earlier and more precise diagnosis of these conditions.<\/p>\n<p>In the study, published March 30 in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/neuron\/fulltext\/S0896-6273(26)00140-6\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Neuron<\/i><\/a>, a multi-institutional team of clinicians, neuroscientists and data scientists, steered by Muhammad Ali, an assistant professor of psychiatry at WashU Medicine and first author of the study, analyzed nearly <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2026-03-protein-atlas-biological-dots-underlying.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">7,000 proteins<\/a> in samples of spinal fluid and blood from nearly 6,000 people\u2014including people with neurodegenerative diseases as well as healthy controls\u2014to better understand four major neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer\u2019s disease, Parkinson\u2019s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, and frontotemporal dementia.<\/p>\n<p>By analyzing these diseases in parallel, the researchers could distinguish both <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2024-11-drug-alzheimer-cerebrospinal-fluid.html\">shared and disease\u2011specific \u201cmolecular fingerprints.\u201d<\/a> Across all four diseases, the protein analysis indicated clear evidence of inflammation, damage to the connections between nerve cells, and changes in the scaffolding around cells known as the extracellular matrix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at WashU Medicine have uncovered new molecular insights into Alzheimer\u2019s disease, Parkinson\u2019s disease and other forms of dementia by analyzing thousands of proteins in both cerebrospinal fluid and blood plasma. The study, led by Carlos Cruchaga, the Barbara Burton &amp; Reuben Morriss III Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and director of the NeuroGenomics [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}