Structural brain abnormalities in patients with Parkinson disease: a comparative voxel-based analysis using...

In PD, tissue damage occurs in specific cortical and subcortical regions. Conventional MR images have only limited capacity to depict these structural changes. The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether voxel-based MT imaging could indicate structural abnormalities beyond atrophy measurable with T1-weighted MR imaging.

Thirty-six patients with PD without dementia (9 in H&Y stage 1, thirteen in H&Y 2, eleven in H&Y 3, three in H&Y 4) and 23 age-matched control subjects were studied with T1-weighted MR imaging and MT imaging. Voxel-based analyses of T1-weighted MR imaging was performed to investigate brain atrophy, while MT imaging was used to study abnormalities within existing tissue. Modulated GM and WM probability maps, sensitive to volume, and nonmodulated maps, indicative of tissue density, were obtained from T1-weighted MR imaging. Effects seen on MTR images, but absent on density maps, were attributed to damage of existing tissue.

Contrary to T1-weighted MR imaging, MT imaging was sensitive to the progression of brain pathology of the neocortex and paraventricular WM. MTR images and T1-based volume images, but not density images, showed a progression of disease in the olfactory cortex, indicating the occurrence of atrophy as well as damage to existing tissue in this region. MTR images revealed bilateral damage to the SN, while T1-weighted MR imaging only showed left-sided abnormalities.

The findings suggest that voxel-based MT imaging permits a whole-brain unbiased investigation of CNS structural integrity in PD and may be a valuable tool for identifying structural damage occurring without or before measurable atrophy.