Aberrant corticospinal tract characteristics in prodromal PD: A diffusion tensor imaging study

Parkinson's disease (PD) is typically diagnosed when motor symptoms first occur. However, PD-related non-motor symptoms may appear several years before diagnosis. REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) and olfactory deficits (hyposmia) are risk factors, but they are not specific for predicting progression towards PD. Other PD-related markers, for example brain imaging markers, may help to identify preclinical PD in hyposmic RBD patients. Studies have reported abnormal structural characteristics in the corticospinal tract (CST) of PD patients, but it is unclear whether hyposmic RBD patients have similar abnormalities that may help to predict PD in these individuals. This study examined whether CST abnormalities may be a potential marker of PD risk by using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures.

Twenty hyposmic RBD patients, 31 PD patients, and 29 healthy controls (HCs) were studied. DTI data were collected on a 1.5 T MRI scanner and CST characteristics (FA, MD, AD, and RD) were evaluated using probabilistic tractography (with seed regions in the bilateral primary motor cortex and mediolateral cerebral peduncles). Olfactory function was assessed with the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT).

Hyposmic RBD patients showed significantly higher mean diffusivity (MD) values of the right CST compared to HCs but did not differ from PD patients. PD patients showed a trend of higher MD values compared to HCs.

Altered diffusivity in the CST seems to be associated with RBD. The combination of RBD, hyposmia, and CST alterations may be related to later development of PD with comorbid RBD.