Jody Tanabe
Parkinson disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease that affects 6 to 10 million people worldwide, incurred an estimated $14.4 billion dollars in medical costs alone in the United States in 2010, and is projected to become a greater burden as the population ages.1 The cardinal signs of PD are bradykinesia, … more »
Andreas Kupsch
When investigating deep brain stimulation (DBS)–surgery-related issues, the question of accurate identification of the location of the active electrodes is crucial and essential. Clearly, both success and occurrence of adverse events can only be optimized if the DBS team is able to precisely identify the anatomic targets and subregion of the active portion of … more »
Niels Focke
Quantitative MRI (qMRI) offers the unique opportunity to generate objective biomarkers of human brain anatomy and (dys-)function. This is particularly relevant for neurodegenerative diseases where clinical assessment may be difficult or, as in Parkinson disease (PD), severely influenced by medication. One of the most challenging questions in imaging in PD concerns differential diagnosis against the … more »
John Gore
Throughout the history of MR imaging there has been a continuous evolution to ever higher magnetic field strengths, catalyzed by the expectation that higher fields provide higher quality images. Since the early 1980s, clinical MRI has moved from 0.15 T through 1.5T to 3T, and each transition has provided increased sensitivity and spatial resolution … more »
Sven Haller
I chose this topic because I am convinced that many neurodegenerative diseases have specific patterns of brain alterations that are too subtle to be detected by visual inspection alone, particularly at early stages of the disease. Early diagnosis is essential in order to initiate treatments to stop or at least slow down future neurodegeneration. This requires … more »
Koji Kamagata
Parkinson disease (PD) is the second most frequent neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer disease.1 In PD, the primary pathologic changes involve loss of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons and the presence of Lewy bodies (α-synuclein–immunoreactive inclusions), with neuronal loss in numerous brain regions.2 To distinguish these pathophysiologic changes in PD, conventional MR imaging has so far … more »
David E. Vaillancourt
My lab is dedicated to understanding Parkinson disease (PD) and movement disorders, to improve patient care in the future. MRI has tremendous potential to provide improved diagnostics and tracking of PD progression, and we are committed to this endeavor.
The current findings are important because they clearly indicate that fiber pathways from … more »