title: Cerebral and Extracranial Neurodegeneration are Strongly Coupled in Parkinson's Disease.
abstract: In idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD), a generalized Lewy body type-degeneration in the brain as well as extracranial organs was identified. It is unclear, whether cerebral and extracranial Lewy body type-degeneration in PD are coupled or not. To address this question, cerebral [(123)I]FP-CIT SPECT - to quantify cerebral nigrostriatal dopaminergic degeneration - and myocardial [(123)I]MIBG scintigraphy - to quantify extracranial myocardial sympathetic degeneration - were performed in 95 PD patients and 20 healthy controls. At each Hoehn and Yahr stage separately, myocardial MIBG uptake correlated significantly with striatal FP-CIT uptake. No such correlation was found in the controls. Cerebral and extracranial Lewy body type-degeneration in PD do not develop independently from each other but develop in a strongly coupled manner. Obviously cerebral and extracranial changes are driven by at least similar pathomechanisms. Our findings in controls contradict a physiological correlation between nigrostriatal dopaminergic and myocardial sympathetic function.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology Saarland University, D-66421 Homburg/Saar, Germany.
authors.forename: Jörg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Spiegel
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hellwig
authors.forename: Wolfgang H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Jost
authors.forename: Georgios
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Farmakis
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Samnick
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fassbender
authors.forename: Carl M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Kirsch
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Dillmann