AUTHOR=Santos Maria C. A. , Campos Lidiane S. , Guimarães Rachel P. , Piccinin Camila C. , Azevedo Paula C. , Piovesana Luiza G. , De Campos Brunno Machado , Scarparo Amato-Filho Augusto C. , Cendes Fernando , D’Abreu Anelyssa TITLE=Does Side of Onset Influence the Pattern of Cerebral Atrophy in Parkinson’s Disease? JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology VOLUME=7 YEAR=2016 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2016.00145 DOI=10.3389/fneur.2016.00145 ISSN=1664-2295 ABSTRACT=Background

Imaging studies have revealed widespread neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s disease (PD), but only a few considered the issue of asymmetrical clinical presentations.

Objective

To investigate if the side of onset influences the pattern of gray matter (GM) atrophy in PD.

Methods

Sixty patients (57.87 ± 10.27 years) diagnosed with idiopathic PD according to the U.K. Brain Bank criteria, 26 with right-sided disease onset (RDO) and 34 with left-sided disease onset (LDO), were compared to 80 healthy controls (HC) (57.1 ± 9.47 years). We acquired T1-weighted images on a 3 T scanner. Images were processed and analyzed with VBM8 (SPM8/Dartel) on Matlab R2012b platform. Statistic assessments included a two-sample test (family-wise error p < 0.05) with extent threshold of 20 voxels.

Results

Compared to HC, LDO patients had GM atrophy in the insula, putamen, anterior cingulate, frontotemporal cortex, and right caudate, while the RDO group showed atrophy at the anterior cingulate, insula, frontotemporal, and occipital cortex.

Conclusion

This study revealed widespread GM atrophy in PD, predominantly in the left hemisphere, regardless of the side of onset. Future investigations should also consider handedness and side of onset to better characterize cerebral involvement and its progression in PD.