Evaluation of the Braak staging of brain pathology with 1H-MRS in patients with Parkinson ’s disease

In this study, we investigated the metabolites of medulla oblongata, substantia nigra (SN), putamen, and motor cortex by measuring N-acetylaspartate (NAA), choline-containing compounds (Cho) and creatine (Cr) in 22 patients of PD and 15 age-matched healthy controls, using single-voxel 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). The results showed that NAA/Cr in SN was lower in PD group than that in control group (p =0.006), however, there was no difference for NAA/Cr and Cho/Cr between PD group and control group in other regions. In SN, NAA/Cr was negatively correlated with Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) (r =−0.743, p =0.002) and Hoehn-Yahr staging (r =−0.714, p =0.003), while Cho/Cr was positively correlated with UPDRS (r =0.850, p< 0.001) and Hoehn-Yahr staging (r =0.647, p =0.009). In PD group, the variance of NAA/Cr in SN was significantly larger than that in other regions (p =0.005), but there was no difference for the variance of Cho/Cr among regions of interesting (ROIs) (p =0.267). These results indicate that SN is the most seriously injured region in PD, and the metabolites in SN measured by 1H-MRS is correlated with the severity of PD. However, the Braak staging of PD pathology is not validated by 1H-MRS.
Source: Neuroscience Letters - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research