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. 2013 Sep 20:3:381-7.
doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2013.09.006. eCollection 2013.

Cerebral magnetic resonance elastography in supranuclear palsy and idiopathic Parkinson's disease

Axel Lipp  1 , Radmila Trbojevic, Friedemann Paul, Andreas Fehlner, Sebastian Hirsch, Michael Scheel, Cornelia Noack, Jürgen Braun, Ingolf Sack
Affiliations

Cerebral magnetic resonance elastography in supranuclear palsy and idiopathic Parkinson's disease

Axel Lipp et al. Neuroimage Clin. .

Abstract

Detection and discrimination of neurodegenerative Parkinson syndromes are challenging clinical tasks and the use of standard T1- and T2-weighted cerebral magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is limited to exclude symptomatic Parkinsonism. We used a quantitative structural MR-based technique, MR-elastography (MRE), to assess viscoelastic properties of the brain, providing insights into altered tissue architecture in neurodegenerative diseases on a macroscopic level. We measured single-slice multifrequency MRE (MMRE) and three-dimensional MRE (3DMRE) in two neurodegenerative disorders with overlapping clinical presentation but different neuropathology - progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP: N = 16) and idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD: N = 18) as well as in controls (N = 18). In PSP, both MMRE (Δμ = - 28.8%, Δα = - 4.9%) and 3DMRE (Δ|G*|: - 10.6%, Δφ: - 34.6%) were significantly reduced compared to controls, with a pronounced reduction within the lentiform nucleus (Δμ = - 34.6%, Δα = - 8.1%; Δ|G*|: - 7.8%, Δφ: - 44.8%). MRE in PD showed a comparable pattern, but overall reduction in brain elasticity was less severe reaching significance only in the lentiform nucleus (Δμ n.s., Δα = - 7.4%; Δ|G*|: - 6.9%, Δφ: n.s.). Beyond that, patients showed a close negative correlation between MRE constants and clinical severity. Our data indicate that brain viscoelasticity in PSP and PD is differently affected by the underlying neurodegeneration; whereas in PSP all MRE constants are reduced and changes in brain softness (reduced μ and |G*|) predominate those of viscosity (α and φ) in PD.

Keywords: Elasticity; MR-elastography; MRE; Parkinson disease; Progressive supranuclear palsy; Viscosity.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Group-wise comparison of MMRE parameters μ and α within the lentiform nuclei; values are group means [SD], *P < 0.05, unpaired t-test.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Normalised parameter maps obtained by 3DMRE. The grayscale in the |G*| maps is from 0 to 3 kPa, the colorscale of phi is from 0 to 0.2. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Group-wise comparison of 3DMRE parameters |G*| and φ within the lentiform nuclei; values are group means [SD], *P < 0.05, unpaired t-test.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Correlation of 3DMRE (|G*|) and severity of clinical symptoms (UPDRSIII-ON) in PD patients.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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