Pretherapeutic specific gray matter volume for predicting MRgFUS thalamotomy-mediated tremor response in Parkinson's disease

This is the first study to assess magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) VIM thalamotomy on gray matter (GM) volume in tremor-dominant Parkinson’s disease (PD). MRgFUS has good efficacy and safety in the treatment of PD. We used three methods to extract specific GM volumes of nine PD patients before and after treatment for calculating their difference and correlation analysis. We found that the specific GM regions may predict tremor responses in PD after thalamotomy, and the results help to better understand the distant effect of MRgFUS thalamotomy and the involvement of GM in tremor control in PD.