Degeneration in the Brains of Parkinson’s Disease Patients

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease associated with the loss of the dopaminergic nigrostriatal tract in the basal ganglia. In the present study, we examined Parkinson’s disease-related degeneration that includes but is not limited to the basal ganglia. T1-weighted MRI scans of Parkinson’s disease patients were employed. We found additional atrophy outside of the basal ganglia in 93% of the patients. Our results suggest that future studies should be done to determine how this additional atrophy relates to current pathological models of Parkinson’s disease.