Abstract
Purpose
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is caused by a selective degeneration of dopamine neurons. The relationship between dopamine transporter (DAT) density and gray matter volume has been unclear. Here we investigated the voxelwise correlation between gray matter volume and DAT binding measured by 123I-N-ω-fluoropropyl-2β-carboxymethoxy-3β-(4-iodophenyl)nortropane (123I-FP-CIT) single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT; DaTscan™ imaging) in PD.
Materials and methods
Thirty-one male patients with PD were examined with MRI and DaTscan. To measure nigrostriatal dopaminergic degeneration in PD, the specific binding ratio (SBR) of the striatum was obtained by DaTscan. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) of 3D T1-weighted images was used to evaluate the relationships between the regional gray matter volume and the SBR in the striatum.
Results
There were significant positive correlations between the SBR and the gray matter volume in the right pulvinar and posterior middle temporal gyrus and a trend level in the left pulvinar, all of which are associated with the second visual pathway.
Conclusion
The nigrostriatal dopaminergic degeneration might affect the secondary visual pathway, leading to visual dysfunctions in PD.
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This retrospective study was approved by the institutional review board at the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry Hospital, and the need for patient informed consent was waived.
Ethical Statement
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. For this type of study, formal consent is not required. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.
Conflict of interest
This study was commissioned by Nihon Medi-Physics Co., Ltd., Hyogo, Japan (grant no. 174). Author Noriko Sato has received research grants from Nihon Medi-Physics Co.
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Maekawa, T., Sato, N., Ota, M. et al. Correlations between dopamine transporter density measured by 123I-FP-CIT SPECT and regional gray matter volume in Parkinson’s disease. Jpn J Radiol 35, 755–759 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-017-0694-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11604-017-0694-z