Aberrant nigral diffusion in Parkinson%26apos;s disease: A longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging study

作者：Loane Clare; Politis Marios; Kefalopoulou Zinovia; Valle Guzman Natalie; Paul Gesine; Widner Hakan; Foltynie Thomas; Barker Roger A; Piccini Paola

来源：Movement Disorders, 2016, 31(7): 1020-1026.

DOI：10.1002/mds.26606

• Parkinson's disease
• DTI
• FA
• MD

BackgroundMeasuring microstructure alterations with diffusion tensor imaging in PD is potentially a valuable tool to use as a biomarker for early diagnosis and to track disease progression. Previous studies have reported a specific decrease of nigral fractional anisotropy in PD. However, to date the effect of disease progression on nigral or striatal diffusion indices has not been fully explored.
MethodsWe have conducted a cross-sectional and longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging study in 18 early stage, treated PD patients and 14 age-matched controls. PD patients were scanned on 2 occasions OFF medication, 19.3 months apart (standard deviation=3.1 months). Longitudinal change of regional nigral and striatal measures of fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity were calculated using a region-of-interest approach.
ResultsRegion-of-interest analysis demonstrated that at baseline, PD patients and controls did not differ in regard to diffusion indices in any region assessed. A significant difference of nigral fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity between controls and PD patients at follow-up was detected and confirmed with longitudinal analysis within PD patients. Alterations in striatal regions were not detected in either group or over time.
ConclusionOur findings indicate that nigral diffusion measure may be a valuable measure of disease progression. In the future, larger longitudinal studies will confirm whether diffusion indices may serve as sensitive and clinically meaningful measures of disease progression in PD.

• 出版日期2016-7