Molecular imaging and parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of dopaminergic (DA) terminals in the striatum, resulting in functional changes in frontostriatal circuits. DA transporter imaging ([123I]FP-CIT SPECT imaging) and brain metabolic imaging ([18F]FDG PET imaging) have been broadly employed to explore the biological substrate of PD, and together they could highlight the pathological processes occurring in early stages of PD. To evaluate the functional association between DA degeneration and cortical metabolism we performed both [123I]FP-CIT SPECT and [18F]FDG PET in the same PD sample; through a multiple regression analysis with SPM we explored the correlation between putaminal DA degeneration and cortical metabolic rate of glucose. In the putamen, which is the first and most affected striatal region in PD, the severity of dopaminergic impairment is directly related to cortical hypometabolism in premotor, dorsolateral prefrontal, anterior prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices. [123I]FP-CIT SPECT and [18F]FDG PET allow to identify the early functional alterations in the frontostriatal circuits involved in PD. © 2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.