The Seeds of Our Own Destruction

This study shows that onset of rapid eye movement behavior disorder can occur as long as 50 years before the development of a synucleinopathy — decades longer than previously thought.

Rapid eye movement behavior disorder (RBD) is associated with later development of synucleinopathies. The typical delay between onsets of these disorders is increasingly appreciated to be longer than initially thought; the most recent estimate of the mean time to onset of motor symptoms was about 12 years (Brain 2009; 132:3298). To clarify how early the RBD symptoms can begin in the course of a synucleinopathy, these investigators reviewed data on 550 patients presenting at one medical center from 2002 to 2006 with Parkinson disease, diffuse Lewy body dementia, or multiple systems atrophy and a history consistent with RBD; 90% were men. Of these patients, 27 had had RBD symptoms for at least 15 years.

Among these 27 patients, the mean age at…

Reviewing Author

Clifford B. Saper, MD, PhD

The Seeds of Our Own Destruction

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Reviewing Author