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Neuroinflammation in Parkinson's disease: a meta-analysis of PET imaging studies

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Abstract

Increasingly, evidence implicates an important role of neuroinflammation in neurodegeneration progression. Yet, brain imaging has not reached a consistent conclusion that neuroinflammation is involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). We aimed to review the evidence to quantitatively assess the existence and spatial distribution of neuroinflammation in the brain of PD patients. We systematically searched literature databases for case–control studies which used positron emission tomography to detect neuroinflammation represented by translocator protein (TSPO) levels in PD patients compared with healthy controls (HC). Standardized mean differences (SMD) were selected as effect sizes and random-effects models were used to combine effect sizes. Subgroup analyses for separate brain regions were conducted. Fifteen studies comprising 455 (HC = 198, PD = 238) participants and 19 brain regions were included. Compared to HC, PD patients had elevated TSPO levels in midbrain, putamen, anterior cingulate, posterior cingulate, thalamus, striatum, frontal, temporal, parietal, occipital, cortex, hippocampus, substantia nigra, pons, cerebellum, and caudate when using 1st-generation ligands. TSPO levels were elevated in the midbrain of PD patients when 2nd-generation ligands were used. We discussed the possible explanations of contrasting difference between these outcomes.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81771148).

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  1. Peng-Fei Zhang and Fan Gao contributed equally to this work.

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  1. Department of Neurology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital, School of Medicine, Qingdao University, No.5 Donghai Middle Road, Qingdao, China

    Peng-Fei Zhang

  2. Department of Neurology, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China

    Fan Gao

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Peng-Fei Zhang and Fan Gao contributed equally to this study.

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Zhang, PF., Gao, F. Neuroinflammation in Parkinson's disease: a meta-analysis of PET imaging studies. J Neurol 269, 2304–2314 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-021-10877-z

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