Parkinson's Disease Spatial Covariance Pattern: Noninvasive Quantification with Perfusion MRI

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Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with elevated expression of a specific disease-related spatial covariance pattern (PDRP) in radiotracer scans of cerebral blood flow and metabolism. In this study, we scanned nine early-stage patients with PD and nine healthy controls using continuous arterial spin labeling (CASL) perfusion magnetic resonance imaging (pMRI). Parkinson's disease-related metabolic pattern expression in CASL pMRI scans was compared with the corresponding 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography values. The PDRP expression was abnormally elevated ( P<0.01) in patients scanned with either modality, and the two values were highly intercorrelated ( P<0.0001). Perfusion MRI methods can be used for accurate quantification of disease-related covariance patterns.