Correlation Between Brain Iron Deposition And Motor Symptoms In Patients With Parkinson’s Disease

ObjectiveSusceptibility weighted imaging(SWI)was used to measure iron content in the brain nucleus and assess the correlation between brain iron deposition and the severity of motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.Methods35 patients with Parkinson’s disease(PD)and 42 age-and sex-matched healthy people completed SWI examinations at 3T MRI.Caudate nucleus,putamen,globus pallidus,thalamus,substantia nigra pars reticulata,substantia nigra pars compactac,red nucleus and dentate nucleus were measured on phase maps.Collect clinical data such as disease duration,Hoehn-Yahr stage,Scores of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale(UPDRS)part I,II,III and total score.Independent sample t-test were used to compare the PD group and the control group.According to Hoehn-Yahr stage,the PD components were divided into early group(≤1.5)and middle-late group(> 1.5),and the comparison with the control group was performed using analysis of variance.Finally,the correlationbetween the iron content in the brain nucleus and the severity of motor symptoms was analyzed.ResultsThe phase value of each nucleus in the control group was negatively correlated with the iron content of normal human brain reported in the literature.Compared with the control group,the phase shift value of substantia nigra pars compactac in PD patients was significantly reduced.The phase shift value of substantia nigra pars compactac in the middle and late PD group was significantly lower than that in the control group.The phase value of substantia nigra pars compactac has a significant correlation with UPDRS-Ⅱ score.ConclusionsThe iron content in the dense part of the substantia nigra may gradually increase during the progression of PD disease,and the iron deposition in the middle and late stages of the disease is more significant.Substantia nigra pars compactac iron deposition in PD patients is significantly associated with motor symptoms,suggesting that it may serve as a potential marker for monitoring disease progression.