Diffusion kurtosis imaging characteristics of brain gray matter nucleus microstructure in Parkinson's disease with different movement disorder subtypes / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To investigate the difference in the microstructure of gray matter nucleus in different movement subtypes of Parkinson’s disease (PD) by diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) technique, and to analyze the correlation with clinical manifestations.@*Methods@#Ninety-seven patients with PD and 83 healthy controls performed conventional MRI sequence and DKI sequence scan. The PD patients were classified into gait disorder subtype (PIGD, n=57) and tremor dominant subtype (TD, n=40)subtypes according to motor symptoms. Fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (Da), radial diffusivity(Dr), mean kurtosis (MK), axial kurtosis (Ka) and radial kurtosis (Dr) maps and data were generated by software after processing. DKI was performed for all subjects and data was collected from different brain regions in both hemispheres, including red nucleus(RN), substantia nigra pars reticulate(SNr), substantia nigra pars compacta(SNc), putamen(PUT), globus pallidus(GP), head of caudate nucleus (CN)and thalamus(THA).@*Results@#TD showed a higher MMSE score(P=0.019), but lower modified Hoehn-Yahr score than that in PIGD (P<0.001), there was no significant difference of age of onset, sex, limbs of onset or disease duration between two PD subgroups. Compared with healthy controls, both TD and PIGD showed down-regulated MD, Da and Dr and up-regulated Ka values(P<0.001); MK(0.83±0.26, 0.80±0.18) was increased in SNr both in TD and PIGD, while SNc, PUT and GP (0.84±0.20, 0.75±0.07, 0.81±0.14)were decreased only in TD (P=0.017, P=0.010, P=0.020, P<0.001, P=0.002). The Kr values of PUT and CN(0.71±0.17, 0.72±0.14) were reduced in PIGD, while CN(0.70±0.14) were reduced in TD respectively (P=0.002, P=0.031, P=0.007). The MK was lower in TD than that in PIGD (t=-2.214, P=0.029), and no significant difference was found in other grey matter nuclei between TD and PIGD(P>0.05). Moreover, there was no significant correlation between DKI value and disease duration, MMSE score or Hoehn-Yahr scale (P>0.05) in TD and PIGD.@*Conclusion@#There is heterogeneity of clinical symptoms between these two subgroups of PD. DKI can quantify the microstructural changes of grey matter nucleus in different type PD patient.