VBM In The Study Of Gray Matter Volume Changes In Parkinson’s Disease Without Cognitive Impairment

Objective: Voxel-based morphometry was used to compare the volume of gray matter in the brains of patients with early stage Parkinson disease(PD)and middle-late stage PD,and to identify the specific regions responsible for progression in PD.Methods: 20 patients with primary Parkinson’s disease(PD)and 20 healthy control(HC).The PD group included 10 patients in the early stage of disease,and 10 patients in the middle-late stages.MRI scans were collected for all participants by GE,Discovery MR-750 3.0T Voxel-based morphometry analysis was performed using SPM8 and DPABI on the Matlab2014 a platform.Compared of the gray matter volume differences between the early PD and middle-late stage PD.Correlation analysis was used spearman correlation analysis between the gray matter volume and disease duration.Results: 1.Compared to HC,PD had lower gray matter volume,especially in the frontal leaves,the temporal lobe,the thalamus,and the limbic system.The reduction of gray matter volume in PD is mainly identifiable in the left hemisphere.There were no gray matter increases in any regions.2.Compared to early stage PD,the gray matter volume of the middle-late stages PD decreased,most markedly in the occipital lobe,temporal lobe and insular lobe.Most of them were in the left hemisphere.There were no gray matter increases observed.3.The disease duration was negatively associated with gray matter volume in the regions where gray matter volume decreased.Conclusions: We found extensive loss of gray matter volume in Parkinson’s disease patients,resulting in damage in the function of corresponding brain areas,consistent with clinical characteristics of Parkinson’s disease.And the reduction in gray matter volume was mainly identifiable in the left hemisphere,considering the left hemisphere susceptibility to Parkinson’s disease.In addition,this study provided important neuroimaging evidence for observation of the distribution abnormal gray matter features in Parkinson’s disease.Further investigation and wide application of voxel-based morphometry can provide a greater understanding of brain morphological abnormalities in Parkinson’s disease,as well as potential mechanisms.