Clinical application of MULTIPLEX as a rapid multi-parametric brain imaging method in early Parkinson’s disease

Quantitative MRI can measure a variety of physiological tissue parameters, such as longitudinal T1 value, transverse T2 value and proton density, iron content and fat content. We tried to apply a multi-parametric MR imaging technique of MULTIPLEX that provides the maps of T1, T2*, proton density and quantitative susceptibility mapping into the diagnosis of early Parkinson’s disease (PD). We found that MULTIPLEX could provide comprehensive and quantitative assessment of Parkinson’s disease-related subcortical nucleus and dopaminergic midbrain regions captured in multiple MR imaging parameters, which might assist in the diagnosis and better understanding of early Parkinson’s disease under tight clinical time-constraints.