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Updated: Oct 5, 2025
Standardized Data Acquisition for Neuromelanin-Sensitive Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Substantia Nigra
Published on: September 8, 2021
Deep Learning-Based Neuromelanin MRI Changes of Isolated REM Sleep Behavior Disorder
Rahul Gaurav1,2,3, Nadya Pyatigorskaya1,2,3,4, Emma Biondetti1,2,3
1Center for NeuroImaging Research (CENIR), Paris Brain Institute-ICM, Paris, France.
Background:
Isolated REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) is considered a prodromal stage of parkinsonism. Neurodegenerative changes in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) in parkinsonism can be detected using neuromelanin-sensitive MRI.
Objective:
To investigate SNc neuromelanin changes in iRBD patients using fully automatic segmentation.
Methods:
We included 47 iRBD patients, 134 early Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and 55 healthy volunteers (HVs) scanned at 3 Tesla. SNc regions-of-interest were delineated automatically using convolutional neural network. SNc volumes, volumes corrected by total intracranial volume, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio were computed. One-way general linear models (GLM) analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted while adjusting for age and sex.
Results:
All SNc measurements differed significantly between the three groups (except SNR in iRBD). Changes in iRBD were intermediate between those in PD and HVs.
Conclusions:
Using fully automated SNc segmentation method and neuromelanin-sensitive imaging, iRBD patients showed neurodegenerative changes in the SNc at a lower level than in PD patients. © 2022 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.
