This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The search for reliable MRI markers for Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), and the most important of the atypical forms of PD, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), and other disorders is currently underway on a broad front. The investigators have developed a new technology for detecting PD using clinical MRI. The patients are scanned with two different clinical pulse sequences. The scans are then combined mathematically in a way that reveals areas of neurodegenerative change in the gray matter of the affected structure (substantia nigra). The investigators have shown that the technique can separate patients from controls with a very high degree of confidence (p0.001) and with no overlap between the two groups. This strongly suggests that this MRI technique is a potent biological marker for PD. They will now apply the same methodology to AD and non-demented PSP patients and will also continue to scan patients with PD. MRI signal of tissue in a part of the brain known to be affected by the disease will be mathematically compared with signal from tissue that is relatively unaffected by the disease. In AD, gray matter in the hippocampus will be directly compared with gray matter in the occipital cortex. In PSP, the medial border of the substantia nigra will be compared with the lateral border of the same structure. The ratio of signals in the normal and abnormal tissues can be used to construct a Radiological Index (RI) for disease severity. This will be used to compare patients and controls by standard t-test techniques.
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