Combined Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Arterial Spin Labeling as Markers of Early Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

This study aimed to identify a PD-specific MRI pattern using combined diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and arterial spin labeling (ASL) to discriminate patients with early PD from healthy subjects and evaluate disease status. Twenty-one early and 22 mid-late PD patients, and 22 healthy, age/gender-matched controls underwent 3-T MRI with apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), fractional anisotropy (FA), fiber number (FN) and cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements. We found that compared with healthy subjects, there was a profound reduction in FN passing through the SN in PD. FA in the SN and CBF in the caudate nucleus were inversely correlated with motor dysfunction. A negative correlation was observed between FA in the hippocampus (Hip) and the NMSS-Mood score, whereas CBF in the Hip and the prefrontal cortex(PFC) correlated with declined cognition. Stratified five-fold cross-validation identified FA in the SN(FA-SNAv), CBF in the PFC(CBF-PFCAv) and FA in the parietal white matter(FA-PWMAv), and the combination of these measurements offered relatively high accuracy (AUC 0.975, 90% sensitivity and 100% specificity) in distinguishing those with early PD from healthy subjects. We demonstrate that the decreased FNs through SN in combination with changes in FA-SNAv, CBF-PFCAv and FA-PWMAv values might serve as potential markers of early-stage PD.

Multidelay multiparametric arterial spin labeling perfusion MRI and mild cognitive impairment in early stage Parkinson's disease

“…The small sample size may potentially account for differ- This is in agreement with the parallel circuits linking the basal ganglia and cortex (Alexander, DeLong, & Strick, 1986). This parallel loop model of striatal organization is broadly supported by studies of striatal anatomical and functional connections, hypoperfusion and hypometabolism using ASL and PET (Fernandez-Seara et al, 2012;Lehericy et al, 2004;Pappata et al, 2011;Postuma & Dagher, 2006;Wang et al, 2017;Wei et al, 2016). In addition, we found prolonged connectivity (Borghammer et al, 2010;.…”

“…Arterial spin labeling (ASL) is a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method for quantifying cerebral blood flow (CBF) and arterial transit time (ATT) by using magnetically labeled arterial blood water as an endogenous tracer. Because it is entirely noninvasive, and needs no radioactive tracer or other contrast agent (Detre, Leigh, Williams, & Koretsky, ), ASL has been increasingly used to investigate perfusion in healthy controls (HCs) and several neurological and psychiatric disorders (Hales, Kawadler, Aylett, Kirkham, & Clark, ; Lin et al, ; Lui et al, ), including PD (Al‐Bachari et al, ; Al‐Bachari, Vidyasagar, Emsley, & Parkes, ; Fernandez‐Seara et al, ; Lin et al, ; Melzer et al, ; Wei et al, ).…”

“…Because it is entirely noninvasive, and needs no radioactive tracer or other contrast agent (Detre, Leigh, Williams, & Koretsky, 1992), ASL has been increasingly used to investigate perfusion in healthy controls (HCs) and several neurological and psychiatric disorders (Hales, Kawadler, Aylett, Kirkham, & Clark, 2014;Lin et al, 2016;Lui et al, 2009), including PD (Al-Bachari et al, 2014Al-Bachari, Vidyasagar, Emsley, & Parkes, 2017;Fernandez-Seara et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2016;Melzer et al, 2011;Wei et al, 2016).…”

Discriminative Pattern of Reduced Cerebral Blood Flow in Parkinson's Disease and Parkinsonism-Plus Syndrome: an ASL-MRI study

“…Previously, arterial spin labeling imaging combined with diffusion tensor imaging has been shown as useful markers for early Parkinson's disease [29]. In our study, PD patients showed reduced CBF in ve brain regions, i.e., the right cerebelum_crus2, the left MFG, the left IFG_Tri, the left FG_Med_Orb, and the left CN, as detected by 3D-pCASL.…”

Complexity across scales: a walkthrough to linking neuro-imaging readouts to molecular processes

“…By using radioisotopic tracers, depletion of blood flow can be traced by reduced glucose consumption in a particular brain region [143,144]. Apart from SPECT, MRI tensors are constantly tuned to detect early neoplasms and altered blood flow detection with high-resolution quality [145,146].…”