White matter pathology in Parkinson's disease: the effect of imaging protocol differences and relevance to executive function.

ABSTRACT: Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging is increasingly used as a non-invasive method to investigate white matter structure in neurological and neuropsychiatric disease. However, many options are available for the acquisition sequence and analysis method. Here we used Parkinson's disease as a model neurodegenerative disorder to compare imaging protocols and analysis options. We investigated fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity of white matter in patients and age-matched controls, comparing two datasets acquired with different imaging protocols. One protocol prioritised the number of b value acquisitions, whilst the other prioritised the number of gradient directions. The dataset with more gradient directions was more sensitive to reductions in fractional anisotropy in Parkinson's diseas

SUBMITTER: Rae CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3413883 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature