Keywords:
Neuroradiology brain, Head and neck, MR-Functional imaging, Neural networks, Mammography, Biopsy, Colonography MR, Comparative studies, Endocrine disorders, Lymphoma, Neoplasia
Authors:
Y. Zhao, X. Zheng, Q. Wang, M. Zhang; Hangzhou/CN
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2013/C-0847
Methods and Materials
Subjects
Twenty-one right-handed Hoehn and Yahr stages 1 and 2 Parkinson’s disease patients (11 female,
10 male; age range,
43-81 years,
mean age 60.43 ± 9.65) were identified.
The diagnosis of early Parkinson’s disease was based on medical history,
physical and neurological examinations,
response to levodopa or dopaminergic drugs,
laboratory tests and MRI scans to exclude other diseases.
Patients were examined only after their medication had been withdrawn for at least 15 hours.
Patients were assessed using the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS),14 the Hoehn and Yahr disability scale15 and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) while they were off their medications.
22 neurologically normal subjects (11 female,
11 male; age range 42-75 years,
mean age 59.23 ± 11.12) participated in this study as controls,
and were matched with the patients for age and gender.
Control subjects had no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders were screened for dementia and depression using the MMSE.
All participants were right-handed,
as assessed by the Edinburghhandedness inventory.16 All procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board of Zhejiang University.
All subjects gave written informed consent before taking part in the study.
Experimental design
The multitask paradigm included tactile stimulation,
right-hand motor tasks,
and tactile-motor integration tasks.
These tasks were presented in the following order: passive tactile stimulation task,
motor task,
integration task.
Each task unit consisted of a 30-second performance period followed by a 30-second rest (control) period (Fig.1).
There were three epochs,
with a total testing period of 4.5 minutes and 5 minutes of control period.
The total functional MR imaging time for 19 blocks was 9.5 minutes.
Functional MRI procedure
Subjects were scanned using a 1.5T GE Signa EXCITE MRI scanner with an 8-channel head coil.
Each scanning session began with a high-resolution T1-weighted three-dimensional volume acquisition for anatomical localization (voxel size,
1×1×1 mm3).
This was followed by acquisitions of echoplanar T2*-weighted images with blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) contrast (echo time,
35 msec; flip angle,
90°).
A total of 190 volumes were acquired per fMRI session.
Each volume contained 22 slices of 5 mm thickness (matrix size,
64 × 64 pixels; voxel size,
2.35 × 2.35 × 7 mm3).