Neuroimaging in Vascular Parkinsonism

Abstract Purpose of Review Being a disease with heterogeneous presentations and unclear consensus on its diagnostic criteria, it is difficult to differentiate vascular parkinsonism (VaP) from other neurodegenerative parkinsonism variants. Ongoing research on structural and functional neuroimaging targeting dopaminergic pathway provides us more insight into the pathophysiology of VaP to improve diagnostic accuracy. The aim of this article is to review how the emerging imaging modalities help the diagnostic process and treatment decision in VaP. Recent Findings Dopamine transporter imaging is a promising tool in differentiating presynaptic parkinsonism and VaP. It also predicts the levodopa responders in VaP. Advanced MRI techniques including volumetry, diffusion tensor imaging and sequences visualising substantia nigra are under development, and they are complementary to each other in detecting structural and functional changes in VaP, which is crucial to ensure the quality of future therapeutic trials for VaP. Summary Dopamine transporter imaging is recommended to patients with suspected VaP. Multimodal MRI in VaP would be an important area to be investigated in the near future.

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Factors associated with motor severity in vascular parkinsonism with normal dopamine transporter imaging

Parkinsonism & Related Disorders ◽

10.1016/j.parkreldis.2021.11.033 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Don Gueu Park ◽

Suk Yun Kang ◽

Jin Yong Hong ◽

Mun Kyung Sunwoo ◽

Jung Han Yoon

Keyword(s):

Dopamine Transporter ◽

Vascular Parkinsonism ◽

Dopamine Transporter Imaging ◽

Factors Associated

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Multi-modal neuroimaging feature fusion via 3D Convolutional Neural Network architecture for schizophrenia diagnosis

Intelligent Data Analysis ◽

10.3233/ida-205113 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 25 (3) ◽

pp. 527-540

Author(s):

Babak Masoudi ◽

Sabalan Daneshvar ◽

Seyed Naser Razavi

Keyword(s):

Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽

Magnetic Resonance ◽

Network Architecture ◽

Feature Fusion ◽

Diffusion Tensor ◽

Functional Neuroimaging ◽

Real Data ◽

Resonance Imaging ◽

Functional Changes ◽

The Brain

Early and precise diagnosis of schizophrenia disorder (SZ) has an essential role in the quality of a patient’s life and future treatments. Structural and functional neuroimaging provides robust biomarkers for understanding the anatomical and functional changes associated with SZ. Each of the neuroimaging techniques shows only a different perspective on the functional or structural of the brain, while multi-modal fusion can reveal latent connections in the brain. In this paper, we propose an approach for the fusion of structural and functional brain data with a deep learning-based model to take advantage of data fusion and increase the accuracy of schizophrenia disorder diagnosis. The proposed method consists of an architecture of 3D convolutional neural networks (CNNs) that applied to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) extracted features. We use 3D MRI patches, fMRI spatial independent component analysis (ICA) map, and DTI fractional anisotropy (FA) as model inputs. Our method is validated on the COBRE dataset, and an average accuracy of 99.35% is obtained. The proposed method demonstrates promising classification performance and can be applied to real data.

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of Dopamine transporter imaging in autopsy-confirmed Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.13932958.15726091 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Codrin Lungu ◽

Pritha Ghosh

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Multiple System Atrophy ◽

Dopamine Transporter ◽

Dopamine Transporter Imaging

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of Dopamine transporter imaging in autopsy-confirmed Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.13932958.15389059 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Stewart Factor

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Multiple System Atrophy ◽

Dopamine Transporter ◽

Dopamine Transporter Imaging

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Dopamine Transporter Genetic Reduction Induces Morpho-Functional Changes in the Enteric Nervous System

Biomedicines ◽

10.3390/biomedicines9050465 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (5) ◽

pp. 465

Author(s):

Silvia Cerantola ◽

Valentina Caputi ◽

Gabriella Contarini ◽

Maddalena Mereu ◽

Antonella Bertazzo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Nervous System ◽

Small Intestine ◽

Enteric Nervous System ◽

Dopamine Transporter ◽

Myenteric Plexus ◽

Receptor Activation ◽

D1 Receptor ◽

Functional Changes ◽

Neurochemical Coding ◽

The Impact

Antidopaminergic gastrointestinal prokinetics are indeed commonly used to treat gastrointestinal motility disorders, although the precise role of dopaminergic transmission in the gut is still unclear. Since dopamine transporter (DAT) is involved in several brain disorders by modulating extracellular dopamine in the central nervous system, this study evaluated the impact of DAT genetic reduction on the morpho-functional integrity of mouse small intestine enteric nervous system (ENS). In DAT heterozygous (DAT+/−) and wild-type (DAT+/+) mice (14 ± 2 weeks) alterations in small intestinal contractility were evaluated by isometrical assessment of neuromuscular responses to receptor and non-receptor-mediated stimuli. Changes in ENS integrity were studied by real-time PCR and confocal immunofluorescence microscopy in longitudinal muscle-myenteric plexus whole-mount preparations (). DAT genetic reduction resulted in a significant increase in dopamine-mediated effects, primarily via D1 receptor activation, as well as in reduced cholinergic response, sustained by tachykininergic and glutamatergic neurotransmission via NMDA receptors. These functional anomalies were associated to architectural changes in the neurochemical coding and S100β immunoreactivity in small intestine myenteric plexus. Our study provides evidence that genetic-driven DAT defective activity determines anomalies in ENS architecture and neurochemical coding together with ileal dysmotility, highlighting the involvement of dopaminergic system in gut disorders, often associated to neurological conditions.

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