MRI technique aids assessment of dopaminergic recovery in Parkinson's
disease
WESTPORT, Oct 11, 1999 (Reuters Health) - In a rat model of Parkinson's
disease, pharmacologic MRI is a sensitive technique for assessing
recovery of dopaminergic neurons after fetal cell transplantation,
Massachusetts researchers report.
Study director Dr. Bruce G. Jenkins, of Massachusetts General
Hospital in Charlestown, told Reuters Health that he expects
pharmacologic MRI paired with positron emission tomography (PET) to
eventually become the "gold standard" for assessing recovery in
Parkinson's disease patients.
Dr. Jenkins and a multicenter team compared three ways of assessing
recovery in the animals: behavioral assessment, PET and pharmacologic
MRI. They tried the techniques first in healthy rats, then in a rat
model of unilateral Parkinson's disease induced by 6-hydroxydopamine,
and finally in a subset of the latter group of rats that had undergone
transplantation of fetal dopamine neurons.
The authors concluded that pharmacologic MRI showed "...great
promise for evaluation of dopaminergic tone in the brain." The onset and
recovery of Parkinson's disease as measured by these techniques
correlated with behavioral assessments in the animals, according to the
researchers' report in the September 29th issue of NeuroReport.
Pharmacologic MRI is "...just another means of assessing the
viability of neuronal grafting," Dr. Jenkins told Reuters Health. He
pointed out that it has several advantages over PET, including cost,
availability and, unlike PET, no exposure to radioactivity. On the other
hand, he said, pharmacologic MRI requires the use of a pharmacologic
challenge with amphetamines or other drugs, such as L-dopa.
Dr. Jenkins does not recommend that pharmacologic MRI be used alone
in the assessment of recovery in patients with Parkinson's disease.
Because pharmacologic MRI offers information complementary to PET, he
believes that the two techniques should be used together. And since
patients who undergo PET generally also undergo MRI, the additional of a
pharmacologic challenge would not add much cost.
Dr. Jenkins added that he and his colleagues have optimized the MRI
technique since the data were submitted for publication. The revised
protocol is threefold more sensitive than the pharmacologic MRI
technique discussed in the report, he said.
NeuroReport 1999;10:2881-2886.
1999 Reuters Limited.
Judith Richards, London, Ontario, Canada
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