To validate the ability of candidate CSF biomarkers to distinguish between patients with and without freezing of gait (FOG) in Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Freezing of gait (FOG) is a common, poorly understood symptom complex that has potentially grave consequences to Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. However, the pathophysiology underlying this symptom remains unknown. Here, we compared levels of potential CSF biomarkers previously implicated in PD progression in patients with FOG versus those without FOG.

These results suggest that FOG may be associated with characteristic changes in specific CSF biomarkers including Fractalkine, Aβ42, and ptau181. These results suggest that the potential exists to identify reproducible, validated CSF biomarkers for FOG. The use of CSF biomarkers for FOG may increase the power of clinical trials to select the appropriate patients for target-specific therapies. The presence of differential biomarkers for PD and FOG provides additional evidence that FOG may not represent continued progression of PD symptoms, but may result from a separate underlying pathophysiology.