Assessment reveals differences in T1 and T2 values in neurodegenerative versus non-neurodegenerative parkinsonism, suggesting MR-STAT's diagnostic value.
Motivation: Magnetic Resonance Spin TomogrAphy in Time-domain (MR-STAT) offers fast T1-/T2-mapping for tissue characterization. We investigated the ability to detect dopaminergic degeneration in clinically uncertain parkinsonian syndrome (CUPS) patients. Goal(s): To assess differences in T1-/T2-values between neurodegenerative and non-neurodegenerative parkinsonism in relevant brain regions using MR-STAT, with dopamine transporter SPECT (DaT-SPECT) as gold standard. Approach: We compared mean T1-/T2-values of grey matter/white matter/caudate nucleus/globus pallidus/putamen/thalamus of patients with neurodegenerative (abnormal DaT-SPECT) versus non-neurodegenerative parkinsonism (normal DaT-SPECT). Results: We found consistently lower T1-values and higher T2-values in neurodegenerative versus non-neurodegenerative CUPS patients, reflecting neuropathological changes in neurodegenerative parkinsonism, indicating potential of MR-STAT as diagnostic tool. Impact: Our results demonstrate that MR-STAT detects differences in T1-/T2-values between neurodegenerative versus non-neurodegenerative parkinsonism patients in a fast and inexpensive way, therewith showing potential as easily accessible tool for detecting neuropathological changes in neurodegenerative parkinsonism with potential diagnostic application.
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Schilder et al. (2025) studied this question.
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