Parkinson's Disease Spatial Covariance Pattern: Noninvasive Quantification with Perfusion MRI

Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with elevated expression of a specific disease-related spatial covariance pattern (PDRP) in radiotracer scans of cerebral blood flow and metabolism. In this study, we scanned nine early-stage patients with PD and nine healthy controls using continuous arterial spin labeling (CASL) perfusion magnetic resonance imaging (pMRI). Parkinson's disease-related metabolic pattern expression in CASL pMRI scans was compared with the corresponding 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography values. The PDRP expression was abnormally elevated ( P