Alterations of diffusion tensor MRI parameters in the brains of patients with Parkinson’s disease compared with normal brains: possible diagnostic use

Objectives: To investigate the diagnostic performance of diffusion tensor imaging in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Methods: We examined a total of 126 PD patients (68 males/58 females, mean age: 62.0 ±7.6 years) and 91 healthy controls (43 males/48 females, mean age: 59.8 ±7.2 years). Images were acquired on a 3 Tesla magnetic resonance scanner. The Camino software was used to normalize and parcellate diffusion-weighted images into 90 cerebral regions based on the automatic anatomical labelling template. The minimum, median, and maximum values of the mean/radial/axial diffusivity/fractional anisotropy were determined. The diagnostic performance was assessed by receiver operating characteristic analysis. The associations of imaging parameters with disease severity were tested using Pearson’s correlation coefficients after adjustment for disease duration. Results: Compared with healthy controls, PD patients showed increased diffusivity in multiple cortical regions that extended beyond the basal ganglia. An area under curve of 85 % was identified for the maximum values of mean diffusivity in the ipsilateral middle temporal gyrus. The most significant intergroup difference was 26.8 % for the ipsilateral inferior parietal gyrus. Conclusion: The measurement of water diffusion from the parcellated cortex may be clinically useful for the assessment of PD patients. Key Points: • Increased diffusivity was identified in multiple cortical regions of Parkinson’s disease patients. • The area under the receiver operating curve was 85 % in the middle temporal gyrus. • The ipsilateral inferior parietal gyrus showed the most significant change.