AccScience Publishing / AN / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/AN025180042
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Digital voice biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease: A study on sustained vowel analysis in the Russian population

Ildar Khasanov1,2 Diana Khasanova2*
Show Less
1 Department of Biomedical Engineering and Artificial Intelligence in Biotechnical Systems, Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Systems Engineering (AIRSE), Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Tatarstan Republic, Russia
2 Department of Digital Technologies in Healthcare, Faculty of General Medicine, Kazan State Medical University, Kazan, Tatarstan Republic, Russia
Advanced Neurology, 025180042 https://doi.org/10.36922/AN025180042
Received: 30 April 2025 | Revised: 2 October 2025 | Accepted: 27 October 2025 | Published online: 11 November 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Voice abnormalities are common in Parkinson’s disease (PD), but the extent to which language-robust acoustic markers capture PD dysphonia in real-world clinical recording conditions and whether they are confounded by sex, language background, or medication state remains uncertain. This study aims to quantify PD-controlled differences in sustained-vowel acoustics in a Russian cohort, evaluate sex and language effects (Russian, Russian–Tatar bilinguals, and exploratory Tatar subgroup), and assess the robustness to clinical covariates. Cross-sectional data from the BRAINPHONE project were analyzed (n = 201; PD = 109; controls = 92). Participants produced sustained/aː/vowels in routine clinics (≥16 kHz, 32-bit.,wav). Acoustic features included perturbation (jitter and shimmer), cepstral/noise measures (cepstral peak prominence; harmonic-to-noise ratio; glottal-to-noise excitation ratio), and pitch metrics. Group contrasts used the Mann–Whitney U test and false discovery rate (FDR). Robust models adjusted for age, sex, and language; prespecified interactions probed diagnosis × sex/language. Spearman correlations related acoustics to Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale III, Hoehn and Yahr, disease duration, and medication variables. PD showed higher perturbation and lower cepstral/noise measures than controls (all q≤0.01 effects were consistent in females and males and replicated in Russian monolinguals and Russian–Tatar bilinguals with the Tatar monolingual subgroup being directionally similar. Covariate-adjusted models retained significant PD effects. Acoustic–clinical correlations were small (|ρ|≤~0.21) and did not survive FDR. In real-world clinical recordings of sustained vowels, CPPS, GNE, and shimmer provide robust, language-tolerant, medication-insensitive markers of PD dysphonia, supporting use as a complementary digital biomarker for telemedicine and longitudinal monitoring.

Keywords
Parkinson’s disease
Voice
Sustained vowel
Digital biomarker
Language influence
Acoustic features
Sex differences
Bilingualism
Funding
The Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises funded initial research on 03.07.2023 (grant number: 4986ГС1/85525).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
References
  1. World Health Organization. Parkinson Disease Fact Sheet. Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/ detail/parkinson-disease [Last accessed on 2025 Nov 10].

 

  1. Poewe W, Seppi K, Tanner CM, et al. Parkinson disease. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2017;3:17013. doi: 10.1038/nrdp.2017.13

 

  1. Kalashnikova OS, Munasipova SE, Khasanova DM, Latypova GR, Zalyalova ZA. Epidemiology of Parkinson’s disease in the Republic of Tatarstan. Pract Med. 2011;7(55):210-211.

 

  1. Rozhdestvensky AS, Delov RA, Marks EA, Gaponenko IA, Khanokh EV. Clinical and epidemiological aspects of Parkinson’s disease in the South of Western Siberia. Front Neurol. 2020;11:538782. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2020.538782

 

  1. Razdorskaya VV, Voskresenskaya ON, Yudina GK. Parkinson’s disease in Russia: Prevalence and incidence. Saratov J Med Sci Res. 2016;12(3):379-384.

 

  1. Zalyalova ZA, Kalashnikovva OS, Abdulgalimova DM. Parkinsonism in the Republic of Tatarstan according to the data of the Republican clinic-diagnostic center extrapyramidal pathology and Botulinotherapy. Neurol Bull. 2011;XLIII(2):92-96. doi: 10.17816/nb13706

 

  1. Postuma RB, Berg D, Stern M, et al. MDS clinical diagnostic criteria for Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord. 2015;30(12):1591-1601. doi: 10.1002/mds.26424

 

  1. Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. Clinical Guidelines Parkinson’s Disease, Secondary Parkinsonism and Other Diseases Manifested By Parkinsonism Syndrome; 2021.

 

  1. FDA-NIH (Food and Drug Administration-National Institutes of Health). Biomarker Working Group. BEST (Biomarkers, Endpoints, and other Tools) Resource. Silver Spring, MD: Food and Drug Administration; 2016.

 

  1. Vasudevan S, Saha A, Tarver ME, Patel B. Digital biomarkers: Convergence of digital health technologies and biomarkers. NPJ Digit Med. 2022;5:36. doi: 10.1038/s41746-022-00583-z

 

  1. Cao F, Vogel AP, Gharahkhani P, Renteria ME. Speech and language biomarkers for Parkinson’s disease prediction, early diagnosis and progression. NPJ Parkinsons Dis. 2025;11:57. doi: 10.1038/s41531-025-00913-4

 

  1. Naeem I, Ditta A, Mazhar T, Anwar M, Saeed MM, Hamamet H. Voice biomarkers as prognostic indicators for Parkinson’s disease using machine learning techniques. Sci Rep. 2025;15:12129. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-96950-3

 

  1. Atalar MS, Oguz O, Genc G. Hypokinetic dysarthria in Parkinson’s disease: A narrative review. Sisli Etfal Hastan Tip Bul. 2023;57(2):163-170. doi: 10.14744/SEMB.2023.29560

 

  1. Xavier D, Felizardo V, Ferreira B, et al. Voice analysis in Parkinson’s disease - a systematic literature review. Artif Intell Med. 2025;163:103109. doi: 10.1016/j.artmed.2025.103109

 

  1. Suppa A, Costantini G, Asci F, et al. Voice in Parkinson’s disease: A machine learning study. Front Neurol. 2022;13:831428. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2022.831428

 

  1. Rusz J, Cmejla R, Ruzickova H, Ruzicka E. Quantitative acoustic measurements for characterization of speech and voice disorders in early untreated Parkinson’s disease. J Acoust Soc Am. 2011;129:350-367. doi: 10.1121/1.3514381

 

  1. Dudek M, Hemmerling D, Kaczmarska M, et al. Analysis of voice, speech, and language biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease collected in a mixed reality setting. Sensors (Basel). 2025;25(8):2405. doi: 10.3390/s25082405

 

  1. Sousa M, Krýže P, Amstutz D, et al. Digital speech biomarkers can measure acute effects of levodopa in Parkinson’s disease. NPJ Parkinsons Dis. 2025;11:184. doi: 10.1038/s41531-025-01045-5

 

  1. Siniukov M, Xing E, Attaripour Isfahani S, Soleymani M. Towards a Generalizable Speech Marker for Parkinson’s Disease. ArXiv:2501.03581v2 [eess.AS]. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2501.03581

 

  1. Conklin J, Dmitrieva O. Vowel acoustics of Volga Tatar. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2019); 2019. p. 1604-1608.

 

  1. Khasanova D, Khasanov I, Ilina G, Zalyalova Z. Gender specificity in AI-Based screening diagnostics of Parkinson’s disease (brainphone project). Mov Disord. 2024;39:S574-S575.

 

  1. Zalyalova Z, Khasanova D, Khasanov I, Ilina G. Artificial intelligence opportunities for voice diagnostics of Parkinson’s disease (BRAINPHONE project). AD/PD 2024. Advances in Science and Therapy. In: Conference: International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases and Related Neurological Disorders (ADPD 2024). Lisbon; 2024. p. 1147. doi: 10.32000/2072-1757-2024-1-70-76

 

  1. Khasanova D, Khasanov I, Zalyalova Z. VHI-10 and cognitive dysfunction - relationship and appropriateness of use in patients with Parkinson’s disease. In: Conference: International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases and Related Neurological Disorders (ADPD 2024), Lisbon, 2024. p. 1412.

 

  1. World Medical Association. World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA. 2013;310(20):2191-2194. doi: 10.1001/jama.2013.281053

 

  1. Arora S, Visanji NP, Mestre TA, et al. Investigating voice as a biomarker for leucine-rich repeat kinase 2-associated Parkinson’s disease. J Parkinsons Dis. 2018;8(4):503-510. doi: 10.3233/JPD-181389

 

  1. Wang M, Zhao X, Li F, et al. Using sustained vowels to identify patients with mild Parkinson’s disease in a Chinese dataset. Front Aging Neurosci. 2024;16:1377442. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2024.1377442

 

  1. Tsanas T, Arora S. Data driven subtyping of parkinson’s using acoustic analysis of sustained vowels and cluster analysis: Findings in the Parkinson’s voice initiative study. SN Comput Sci. 2022;3:232. doi: 10.1007/s42979-022-01123-y

 

  1. Tykalova T, Novotny M, Ruzicka E, Dusek P, Rusz J. Short-term effect of dopaminergic medication on speech in early-stage Parkinson’s disease. npj Parkinsons Dis. 2022;8(1):22. doi: 10.1038/s41531-022-00286-y

 

  1. Rusz J, Tykalova T, Novotny M, Zogala D, Ruzicka E, Dusek P. Automated speech analysis in early untreated Parkinson’s disease: Relation to gender and dopaminergic transporter imaging. Eur J Neurol. 2021;29:81-90. doi: 10.1111/ene.15099

 

  1. Asci F, Costantini G, Saggio G, Suppa A. Fostering voice objective analysis in patients with movement disorders. Mov Disord. 2021;36:1041. doi: 10.1002/mds.28537

 

  1. Cernak M, Orozco-Arroyave JR, Rudzicz F, Christensend H, Vasquezb JK, Noth E. Characterisation of voice quality of Parkinson’s disease using differential phonological posterior features. Comput Speech Lang. 2017;46:196-208. doi: 10.1016/j.csl.2017.06.004

 

  1. Hertrich I, Ackermann H. Gender-specific vocal dysfunctions in Parkinson’s disease: Electroglottographic and acoustic analyses. Ann Otol Rhinol Laryngol. 1995;104(3):197-202. doi: 10.1177/000348949510400304

 

  1. Wu KH, Tobias ML, Kelley DB. Estrogen receptor expression in laryngeal muscle in relation to estrogen-dependent increases in synapse strength. Neuroendocrinology. 2003;78(2):72-80. doi: 10.1159/000071962

 

  1. Rusz J, Krack K, Tripoliti E. From prodromal stages to clinical trials: The promise of digital speech biomarkers in Parkinson’s disease. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2024(167):105922. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105922

 

  1. Silva JMSD, Gomes AOC, Coriolano MDGWS, et al. Oropharyngeal geometry and acoustic parameters of voice in healthy and Parkinson’s disease subjects. Codas. 2023;35(2):e20210304. doi: 10.1590/2317-1782/20232021304pt

 

  1. Ho AK, Bradshaw JL, Iansek R. For better or worse: The effect of levodopa on speech in Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord. 2008:23(4):574-580. doi: 10.1002/mds.21899
Share
Back to top
Advanced Neurology, Electronic ISSN: 2810-9619 Print ISSN: 3060-8589, Published by AccScience Publishing