Automatic Acoustic Speech Analysis and REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder for Detecting Subjects at High Risk for Parkinson's Disease and Other Alpha-synucleinopathies

Seven centers of excellence in sleep research will investigate speech and other clinical symptoms in more than 100 subjects with REM sleep behavior disorder. Analyses of a number of unique speech dimensions based upon three fundamental categories of simple speaking tasks will be used to search for specific prodromal alterations in speech patterns in REM sleep behavior disorder, compared to age- and gender-matched patients with early Parkinson's disease and healthy control subjects. Robust algorithms allowing automated speech analysis will be developed and optimized through English, German, French, Czech and Italian languages. Early motor dysfunction strongly predicts Parkinson's disease and other alpha-synucleinopathies. In this regard, vocal assessment has intriguing potential advances as is non-invasive, inexpensive, simple to administer and scalable to large population with possibility to perform recordings remotely, even by telephone from patients' home. Speech analysis may serve as a simple tool to screen large populations for the risk to develop Parkinson's disease. If speech impairment appears to be a strong biomarker of early motor dysfunction, the screening of speech changes may improve stratification for future neuroprotective therapies for Parkinson's disease and other synucleinopathies.