Abstract
Perivascular space (PVS) is associated with neurodegenerative diseases, while its effect on Parkinson’s disease (PD) remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the clinical and neuroimaging significance of PVS in basal ganglia (BG) and midbrain in early-stage PD. We recruited 40 early-stage PD patients and 41 healthy controls (HCs). Both PVS number and volume were calculated to evaluate PVS burden on 7 T magnetic resonance imaging images. We compared PVS burden between PD and HC, and conducted partial correlation analysis between PVS burden and clinical and imaging features. PD patients had a significantly more serious PVS burden in BG and midbrain, and the PVS number in BG was significantly correlated to the PD disease severity and L-dopa equivalent dosage. The fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity values of certain subcortical nuclei and white matter fibers within or nearby the BG and midbrain were significantly correlated with the ipsilateral PVS burden indexes. Regarding to the midbrain, the difference between bilateral PVS burden was, respectively, correlated to the difference between fiber counts of white fiber tract passing through bilateral substantia nigra in PD. Our study suggests that PVS burden indexes in BG are candidate biomarkers to evaluate PD motor symptom severity and aid in predicting medication dosage. And our findings also highlight the potential correlations between PVS burden and both grey and white matter microstructures.
Highlights
Perivascular spaces (PVSs) are fluid-filled spaces surrounding blood vessels that course from the brain surface through brain parenchyma[1]
There were no significant differences between the Parkinson’s disease (PD) and healthy controls (HCs) groups in age, sex, education, Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HAMA) score, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score, Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score, Parkinson Neuropsychometric Dementia Assessvolume, in the right-hemispheric basal ganglia (BG) (BGR), left-hemispheric BG
We detected significantly heavier PVS burden in PD group than the HC group on 7 Tesla (7 T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images, as well as provided fresh data to support the relationship between PVS burden and motor symptom severity in PD
Summary
Perivascular spaces (PVSs) are fluid-filled spaces surrounding blood vessels that course from the brain surface through brain parenchyma[1]. The results of PVS studies remained controversial, the PVS burden had been shown to correlate with aging, cognitive capacity[3,4], sleep quality[5], and depressive states[6]. It was described as a characteristic of neurological diseases including, small vessel disease[7], Alzheimer’s disease (AD)[8], multiple sclerosis[9], as well as Parkinson’s disease (PD)[10,11]. Since the PVS system is involved in the glymphatic drainage system to eliminate metabolic waste[16,17], and there was evidence showing that PVS system helped drive out soluble proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases from the brain interstitial fluid[18], we assume that PVS participates in the clearance of abnormal α‐synuclein[19] and its dysfunction may aggravate the pathology of PD
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