Early-Stage Parkinson's Study to Image Pretreatment Brain Function

A team of researchers hope that tests utilizing functional and high-resolution structural brain imaging will reveal new insights into early Parkinson's disease (PD).

The researchers, led by Dr. David Vaillancourt, associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC; USA), have been awarded a two-year, US$855,000 National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA) grant to do the work.

Parkinson's disease, a debilitating movement disorder, is typically managed by using drugs that compensate for a lack of the neurotransmitter dopamine. PD patients have a deficit of this important chemical because of degeneration in an area of the brain stem where it is made--the substantia nigra.

"What's not well understood is how the structure and function of the basal ganglia, or other parts of the brain, are affected early on in the disease,” said Dr. Vaillancourt. He and his colleagues will recruit 25 subjects with early signs of PD who have not yet begun taking drugs to control the disease. Their study will compare findings to a control group matched for age, gender, and handedness--because all subjects will perform motor tasks with their hands while their brain is being imaged.

The study will be the first into early PD to use brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during gripping tasks designed to simulate everyday activities such as buttoning a shirt or blouse, or holding a cup. "Individuals will undergo a brain scan while they exert force using their hands against a device that measures how hard and how fast they squeeze,” said Dr. Vaillancourt. "Functional brain imaging will be targeted at the basal ganglia, which is the part of the brain that underlies symptoms of Parkinson's disease.”

Dr. Vaillancourt's group is investigating what is occurring before PD patients begin treatment with drugs such as levodopa that can change the way the brain functions. Pretreatment brain scans may be useful to develop markers for screening and diagnosis. Those with PD will be imaged as soon as possible after volunteering and will begin treatment with anti-Parkinson's drugs afterward.

"With Parkinson's, the brain must change over time, because it's a neuro-degenerative disease,” Dr. Vaillancourt said. "This study will serve as the basis for trying to understand how the disease progresses.”

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