Premotor Gray Matter Volume is Associated with Clinical Findings in Idiopathic and Genetically Determined Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

In the present voxel-based morphometric study, we investigated whether the severity and duration of disease are associated with alterations in gray matter volume (GMV) in symptomatic Parkin mutation carriers (sPARKIN -MC) and patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (iPD). Regression analyses revealed different negative correlations between GMV in cortical motor areas and the severity as well as the disease duration in s PARKIN -MC and iPD patients. S PARKIN -MC showed a less involvement of cortical motor areas, in particular in the supplementary motor area (SMA) than iPD patients. Specifically, in iPD patients, but not in s PARKIN -MC, there was a negative correlation between the SMA degeneration and the UPDRS-II item freezing. The different degeneration patterns may mirror diverse kinetics of the disease progress in these two groups of PD patients with different underlying etiologies.