Dopamine transporter binding in the brain is linked to irritable bowel syndrome in Parkinson's disease

Gastrointestinal symptoms are common in Parkinson's disease (PD), but their neurophysiological correlates are not well understood. We recently reported that functional gastrointestinal symptoms were not associated with asymmetry per se but might be associated with lower left striatal dopamine transporter (DAT) binding. The purpose of this study was to further investigate if specific gastrointestinal symptoms associate with monoamine transporter changes in specific striatal or extrastriatal areas.

Ninety PD patients, who underwent DAT ¹^{2 3} I-FP-CIT SPECT imaging, were assessed using the MDS-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale part III, Rome III, and Wexner constipation score. DAT binding was calculated from striatal subregions using region-to-occipital cortex ratio. Voxel-wise analysis was used to assess the relationship between gastrointestinal symptoms and striatal DAT and extrastriatal serotonin transporter (SERT) binding.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) criteria were fulfilled in 17 patients and were linked to higher ¹^{2 3} I-FP-CIT binding in the right posterior putamen and adjacent areas as compared to patients without IBS. No other significant associations between gastrointestinal symptoms and DAT or SERT binding were found.

These findings suggest that PD patients with IBS may have higher DAT binding in the right hemisphere. This finding implicates alterations of brain neurotransmitter physiology in the gastrointestinal symptoms of PD patients.