A new sensitive imaging biomarker for Parkinson disease?
Citation Manager Formats
Make Comment
See Comments

This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.
Over the past 25 years, considerable effort has been expended in developing neuroimaging methods capable of differentiating patients with Parkinson disease (PD) from healthy controls. These techniques have been developed with the hope that they could be used as biomarkers for both trait (presence of the disease) and state (severity of the disease), capable of convincingly establishing the diagnosis, defining the presence of the disease at its earliest stages, and serving as a surrogate marker for progression of the underlying disease. The commonest of these evaluate various components of the presynaptic dopaminergic nigrostriatal pathway.1 Others have used metabolic PET scans to identify disease-related functional brain networks.2 These techniques have relatively high sensitivity and specificity for distinguishing even patients with mild PD from healthy controls; however, there remains some overlap and they are expensive, often not widely available, and involve exposure to ionizing radiation.
Over 20 years ago, MRI of the midbrain was first reported to be a promising method of demonstrating the degeneration of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) in PD. Unfortunately, the original claim that narrowing of the MR signal from the SNc differentiated patients from controls on routine MRI3 was never realized. MR diffusion …
AAN Members
We have changed the login procedure to improve access between AAN.com and the Neurology journals. If you are experiencing issues, please log out of AAN.com and clear history and cookies. (For instructions by browser, please click the instruction pages below). After clearing, choose preferred Journal and select login for AAN Members. You will be redirected to a login page where you can log in with your AAN ID number and password. When you are returned to the Journal, your name should appear at the top right of the page.
AAN Non-Member Subscribers
Purchase access
For assistance, please contact:
AAN Members (800) 879-1960 or (612) 928-6000 (International)
Non-AAN Member subscribers (800) 638-3030 or (301) 223-2300 option 3, select 1 (international)
Sign Up
Information on how to subscribe to Neurology and Neurology: Clinical Practice can be found here
Purchase
Individual access to articles is available through the Add to Cart option on the article page. Access for 1 day (from the computer you are currently using) is US$ 39.00. Pay-per-view content is for the use of the payee only, and content may not be further distributed by print or electronic means. The payee may view, download, and/or print the article for his/her personal, scholarly, research, and educational use. Distributing copies (electronic or otherwise) of the article is not allowed.
Letters: Rapid online correspondence
REQUIREMENTS
If you are uploading a letter concerning an article:
You must have updated your disclosures within six months: http://submit.neurology.org
Your co-authors must send a completed Publishing Agreement Form to Neurology Staff (not necessary for the lead/corresponding author as the form below will suffice) before you upload your comment.
If you are responding to a comment that was written about an article you originally authored:
You (and co-authors) do not need to fill out forms or check disclosures as author forms are still valid
and apply to letter.
Submission specifications:
- Submissions must be < 200 words with < 5 references. Reference 1 must be the article on which you are commenting.
- Submissions should not have more than 5 authors. (Exception: original author replies can include all original authors of the article)
- Submit only on articles published within 6 months of issue date.
- Do not be redundant. Read any comments already posted on the article prior to submission.
- Submitted comments are subject to editing and editor review prior to posting.
You May Also be Interested in
Hemiplegic Migraine Associated With PRRT2 Variations A Clinical and Genetic Study
Dr. Robert Shapiro and Dr. Amynah Pradhan