Discriminative pattern of reduced cerebral blood flow in Parkinson’s disease and Parkinsonism-Plus syndrome: an ASL-MRI study

Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Parkinsonism-Plus syndrome (PPS) are clinically common chronic progressive neurodegenerative diseases in middle-aged and senior population. The known pathological basis of PD is over 50% reduction of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta of the midbrain, resulting in a decrease of dopamine production and a relative increase of antagonistic neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which causes hyperfunction. PPS includes a variety of diseases, such as multiple system atrophy (MSA), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), and corticobasal degeneration (CBD). The common feature is the implication of the extrapyramidal system [1‐3]. Albeit similar symptoms, clinical treatment for PD and PPS is obviously different [4‐6]. Thus, accurate identification of these two types of diseases, especially in the early stage of the disease, is very important [7, 8].

Previously, some brain structural changes on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been shown to be able to differentiate between PD and PPS, such as a cross sign, fissure sign, hummingbird sign, swallow tail sign [9‐11]. Unfortunately, these signs mainly occur in the later stage of diseases. Positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) can be used for early identification by observing metabolic changes in the brain region. However, it is not widely available and suffers from shortcomings of high cost and radiation hazards [12, 13]. Besides structural MRI, functional MRI has additional value for differential diagnosis [14‐18]. Among these functional imaging, arterial spin labeling (ASL)-based perfusion-weighted imaging is a novel, non-invasive method that does not require the injection of contrast agent. Currently, three-dimensional pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (3D-pCASL) has been used to measure cerebral perfusion in neurodegenerative diseases quantitatively [19] and demonstrated abnormal cerebral perfusion in PD and MSA [20, 21].

However, whether the spatial pattern of cerebral blood flow (CBF) as measured by ASL imaging is different between patients with PD and PPS remains unclear. In this study, 3D-pCASL was performed in PD and PPS patients to investigate the discriminative spatial pattern of CBF abnormalities in patients with PD and PPS.

Our study results showed that both PD and PPS patients had reduced CBF in several brain regions compared with healthy controls. PPS patients had lower CBF in the left MFG, the left IFG_Tri, the left CN, the left SMA, and the right thalamus than PD patients. CBF value in these five brain regions had a desirable performance for discrimination between PD and PPS.

Previously, arterial spin labeling imaging combined with diffusion tensor imaging has been shown as useful markers for early Parkinson’s disease [29]. In our study, PD patients showed reduced CBF in five brain regions, i.e., the right cerebelum_crus2, the left MFG, the left IFG_Tri, the left FG_Med_Orb, and the left CN, as detected by 3D-pCASL. These results were consistent with previous studies using PET/SPECT and ASL [23, 30‐33], where hypoperfusion was found in widespread cortical regions [20, 23], particularly in frontal regions [23, 30‐32], as well as CN [23], cerebellar regions in PD patients [33]. These areas are often associated with motor function, and cognitive impairments or depression in PD [34, 35]. In addition, hypoperfusion in the left CN and the right cerebelum_crus2 was found in PD patients in our study. Previous studies using ASL technique also found hypoperfusion in the right and left CN in patients with PD [23] and the CBF laterality pattern in the CN was a biomarker for PD diagnosis [36]. The hypoperfusion of CN maybe relate to the dopamine loss, which is associated with the cognitive decline [37] and depressive symptoms [38] in PD. Our results also showed a positive correlation between the CBFs of the left MFG and the left CN and non-motor neuropsychological scores including MMSE and MoCA scores in PD patients. This indicated that the CBF reduction might be associated with cognition decline in the PD. The cerebellum is an important component in motor control. To date, contradictory results have been reported for the cerebellum CBF change in the PD, the exact role of the cerebellum in PD remains to be further understood [33].

It is challenging to differentiate the early-middle stage of PPS from PD based on clinical symptoms. Previously, SPECT and PET-CT have been used to discriminate PD from parkinsonian disorders, such as Parkinson variant of MSA and PSP [39, 40] based on a distinct hypoperfusion pattern in the frontal cortex, thalamus, and cerebellum [39]. In our study, PPS patients showed reduced CBF in five brain regions similar to those of PD and in two additional brain regions, i.e., the left SMA and the right thalamus, as detected by 3D-pCASL. Comparatively, PPS patients had altered CBF in more widespread brain regions. The additional involvement of the left SMA and the right thalamus suggests that PPS patients might have more severe impairment of motor function than PD patients. Further correlation analysis showed that the CBF of left IFG_Tri was positively correlated with the MMSE score and the CBF of the right cerebellum_crus2 was positively correlated with HAMA and HAMD scores in PPS patients. The association between the hypoperfusion in the cerebellum, thalamus, SMA and the damage in the extrapyramidal system has been described in PPS patients [41]. Thus, more widespread and severe impairment of CBF in PPS might reflect more severity of PPS or later stage of disease.

Our study showed that PPS patients had lower CBF values in the left IFG_Tri, the left MFG, the left CN, the left SMA, and the right thalamus compared with PD patients. This different pattern of reduced brain perfusion between PPS and PD is consistent with the previous study, where the perfusion distribution patterns were found to be different among MSA-P, PSP, and PD [42]. In our study, further ROC analysis showed that CBF value in these five brain regions had a desirable AUC for discrimination between PD and PPS, with CBF of the left SMA achieving the highest AUC of 0.831. Previously, a multitude of imaging parameters have been used to differentiate between PD and PPS [9, 43‐45]. Tir et al. found that PSP had a lower fractional anisotropy value derived from diffusion tensor imaging in the SMA [46]. Calloni et al. reported that the middle cerebellar peduncle width and putaminal hypointensity on susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) can be used in combination to distinguish atypical parkinsonisms from idiopathic PD, with an AUC = 0.98 [43]. In addition, swallow tail (AUC = 0.85) and putaminal hypointensity (AUC = 0.68) also were reported to be able to distinguish MSA from PD [9]. Comparatively, the participants in these studies were older and had longer disease duration. In our study, PPS patients in the earlier stage of the disease were included. Our results showed the CBF of the SMA had the greatest AUC (0.831) and might be used as a surrogate marker for the differential diagnosis between the two diseases in an earlier stage.

There are some limitations to this study. First, we did not investigate CBF in early PD patients. The CBF as detected by ASL has been reported in early PD patients and perfusion reduction did not differ among different stages of PD [29]. Second, the sample size is small. Third, the numbers of clinical scales collected are insufficient. Specifically, Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) as a rating tool to assess motor symptoms of PD patients was not applied in our study to evaluate the motor symptoms in PPS patients. Thus, motor clinical scores were not available for all patients. Third, a single PLD time was used in our study. Although the PLD of 1525 ms was commonly used in previous ASL studies [20, 47]. However, a fixed PLD could bring the risk of inaccurate estimation of the CBF when the PLD used is shorter or longer than the arterial transit time. Future studies with multiple PLDs are needed to validate the discriminative CBF in these two diseases. Finally, CBF was measured in each patient under medication in “on” state. The effect of medication state on CBF requires further investigation.

In conclusion, our study demonstrated that PD and PPS patients showed hypoperfusion in several brain regions and PPS showed severer and more widespread impairment in CBF. PD and PPS patients have a certain discriminative pattern of reduced CBFs, in particular, reduced CBF in left SMA, which can be used as a surrogate marker for differential diagnosis.