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Exploring white matter microstructure and olfaction dysfunction in early parkinson disease: diffusion MRI reveals new insight

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Abstract

Olfaction dysfunction is considered as a robust marker of prodromal Parkinson disease (PD). Measurement of olfaction function as a screening test is unsatisfactory due to long lead time interval and low specificity for detection of PD. Use of imaging markers might yield more accurate predictive values and provide bases for combined use of imaging and clinical markers for early PD. Diffusion MRI connectometry was conducted on 85 de novo PD patients in and 36 healthy controls to find: first, white matter tracts with significant difference in quantitative anisotropy between PD groups with various degrees of olfaction dysfunction and second, second fibers with correlation with University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) score in each group using a multiple regression analysis considering age, sex, GDS and MoCA score. Local connectomes were determined in seven of all the possible comparisons, correcting for false discovery rate (FDR). PD patients with anosmia and normal olfaction had the highest number of fibers with decreased connectivity in left inferior longitudinal fasciculus, bilateral fornix, bilateral middle cerebellar peduncle (MCP), bilateral cingulum, bilateral corticospinal tract (CST) and body, genu and splenium of corpus callosum (CC) (FDR = 0.0013). In multiple regression analysis, connectivity in the body, genu and splenium of CC and bilateral fornix had significant negative correlation (FDR between 0.019 and 0.083), and bilateral cingulum and MCP had significant positive correlation (FDR between 0.022 and 0.092) with UPSIT score. White matter connectivity in healthy controls could not be predicted by UPSIT score using the same model. The results of this study provide compelling evidence that microstructural degenerative changes in these areas underlie the clinical phenotype of prodromal olfaction dysfunction in PD and that diffusion parameters of these areas might be able to serve as signature markers for early detection of PD. This is the first report that confirms a discriminative role for UPSIT score in identifying PD specific changes in white matter microstructure. Our results open a window to identify microstructural signatures of prodromal PD in white matter.

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Acknowledgements

The database of this work was funded by grants from the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the W Garfield Weston Foundation, and the Alzheimer’s Association, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We thank Christian Beckmann and Simon Eickhoff for their advice on data analysis. Data used in this article were obtained from the Parkinson Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) database (www.ppmi-info.org/data). For up-to-date information on the study, visit www.ppmi-info.org. PPMI is sponsored and partially funded by the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson Research and funding partners, including AbbVie, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, Biogen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Covance, GE Healthcare, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Eli Lilly and Company, Lundbeck, Merck, Meso Scale Discovery (MSD), Pfizer, Piramal Imaging, Roche, Servier, and UCB (www.ppmi-info.org/fundingpartners).

Authors’ Contribution statements

All the authors agreed on the current list of authors as it appears on the first page. Soheila Sobhani, Farzaneh Rahmani and Mohammad Hadi Aarabi contributed equally to this paper as first authors.

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  1. Soheila Sobhani, Farzaneh Rahmani and Mohammad Hadi Aarabi contributed equally as first authors of this manuscript.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Basir Eye Health Research Center, Tehran, Iran

    Soheila Sobhani & Mohammad Hadi Aarabi

  2. Neuroimaging Network (NIN), Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN), Children’s Medical Center Hospital, Tehran, 14194, Iran

    Soheila Sobhani, Farzaneh Rahmani & Mohammad Hadi Aarabi

  3. Students’ Scientific Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Soheila Sobhani, Farzaneh Rahmani & Mohammad Hadi Aarabi

  4. Department of Physics, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Evin, Tehran, Iran

    Alireza Vafaei Sadr

  5. Département de Physique Théorique and Center for Astroparticle Physics, Université de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland

    Alireza Vafaei Sadr

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  1. Soheila Sobhani
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  2. Farzaneh Rahmani
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Correspondence to Farzaneh Rahmani.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study, by the Parkinson’s Disease Progression Marker Initiative (PPMI).

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Sobhani, S., Rahmani, F., Aarabi, M.H. et al. Exploring white matter microstructure and olfaction dysfunction in early parkinson disease: diffusion MRI reveals new insight. Brain Imaging and Behavior 13, 210–219 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-017-9781-0

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