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Evaluation of white matter microstructure in patients with Parkinson’s disease using microscopic fractional anisotropy

  • Diagnostic Neuroradiology
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Abstract

Purpose

Micro fractional anisotropy (μFA) is more accurate than conventional fractional anisotropy (FA) for assessing microscopic tissue properties and can overcome limitations related to crossing white matter fibres. We compared μFA and FA for evaluating white matter changes in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Methods

We compared FA and μFA measures between 25 patients with PD and 25 age- and gender-matched healthy controls using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis. We also examined potential correlations between changes, revealed by conventional FA or μFA, and disease duration or Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS)-III scores.

Results

Compared with healthy controls, patients with PD had significantly reduced μFA values, mainly in the anterior corona radiata (ACR). In the PD group, μFA values (primarily those from the ACR) were significantly negatively correlated with UPDRS-III motor scores. No significant changes or correlations with disease duration or UPDRS-III scores with tissue properties were detected using conventional FA.

Conclusion

μFA can evaluate microstructural changes that occur during white matter degeneration in patients with PD and may overcome a key limitation of FA.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Yuki Takenaka and Mana Kuramochi for their research assistance.

Funding

This work was supported by the Brain/MINDS Beyond program from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) under Grant Number JP19dm0307024; JSPS KAKENHI (JP16K19854); a High Technology Research Center Grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan (MEXT); and the MEXT-Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities, 2014–2018.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-1-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8421, Japan

    Yutaka Ikenouchi, Koji Kamagata, Christina Andica, Akihiko Wada, Michimasa Suzuki, Shohei Fujita, Akifumi Hagiwara, Masaaki Hori & Shigeki Aoki

  2. Department of Neurology, Juntendo University School of Medicine, 2-1-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8421, Japan

    Taku Hatano, Takashi Ogawa, Haruka Takeshige-Amano, Genko Oyama & Nobutaka Hattori

  3. Department of Radiology, The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Kouhei Kamiya & Ryusuke Irie

  4. Department of Neurology, Juntendo University Nerima Hospital, 3-1-10 Takanodai, Nerima-ku, Tokyo, 177-8521, Japan

    Yashushi Shimo

  5. Department of Neurosurgery, Juntendo University School of Medicine, 2-1-1, Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8421, Japan

    Atsushi Umemura

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  1. Yutaka Ikenouchi
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Correspondence to Koji Kamagata.

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Ikenouchi, Y., Kamagata, K., Andica, C. et al. Evaluation of white matter microstructure in patients with Parkinson’s disease using microscopic fractional anisotropy. Neuroradiology 62, 197–203 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-019-02301-1

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