Research Article
Alterations of ASL Blood Perfusion in the Thalamus and Ventral Intermediate Thalamic Nucleus in Parkinson's Disease Patients
Hong-Ying Zhang1, Yao Xu2, Jia-Xing Cheng2, Wen-Xin Chen1, Jing Ye1, Jing-Tao Wu1, Lan-Lan Chen2 and Jun Xu2,3*1Department of Radiology, Subei People’s Hospital of Jiangsu Province, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225001, China
2Department of Neurology, Subei People’s Hospital of Jiangsu Province, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225001, China
3Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine for Prevention and Treatment for Senile Diseases, School of Medicine, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225001, China
- *Corresponding Author:
- Jun Xu
Department of Neurology
Subei People’s Hospital of Jiangsu Province,
Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225001, China
Tel: +86 136 1157 2068
E-mail: 13611572068@126.com
Received date: September 19, 2016; Accepted date: November 01, 2016; Published date: November 08, 2016
Citation: Zhang HY, Xu Y, Cheng JX, Chen WX, Ye J, et al. (2016) Alterations of ASL Blood Perfusion in the Thalamus and Ventral Intermediate Thalamic Nucleus in Parkinson’s Disease Patients. J Alzheimers Dis Parkinsonism 6: 281. doi: 10.4172/2161-0460.1000281
Copyright: ©2016 Zhang HY, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by brain metabolic abnormalities, particularly in subcortical regions. However, previously reported observations of subcortical blood perfusion are inconsistent, especially in the thalamus. This study aimed to investigate the alterations of thalamic regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) in PD by using a recently developed advanced 3D pseudo-continuous pulse arterial spin labeling (ASL) perfusion magnetic resonance imaging approach. Twenty-three PD patients with mild-to-moderate stage disease and 29 normal control subjects underwent ASL MRI. Regional mean CBF values in the thalamus and ventral intermediate thalamic nucleus (Vim) were measured and compared between the groups by one-way analysis of variance. The PD patients showed significantly lower CBF than controls in the bilateral thalamus and Vim. Our findings indicate that hypoperfusion in the thalamus and Vim could be an imaging marker of PD.
