Project Details
Projekt
Ultra-high field (UHF) MRI brain biosignatures in the differential diagnosis between Parkinson's disease and atypical Parkinson disorders
Subject Area
Radiology
Clinical Neurology; Neurosurgery and Neuroradiology
Clinical Neurology; Neurosurgery and Neuroradiology
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 500888779
The early and definite clinical distinction between sporadic Parkinson's disease (sPD) and atypical Parkinson disorders (aPD), such as multiple system atrophy (MSA) or progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) still remains challenging with high rates of misdiagnosis reported. Thus, from a clinical perspective, a noninvasive method or biomarker for characterizing early and disease specific mechanisms is still an unmet need and highly desirable. The interdisciplinary translational C1 project aims to develop a comprehensive MR biosignature protocol for differentiating sPD and aPD disorders using 7T MRI. The protocol will first be evaluated using volunteer measurements. Then, a longitudinal study will be conducted to explore the potential significance of the biosignature for differentiating between healthy brain tissue and brain tissue in different neurodegenerative movement disorders. The project will use a dedicated multimodal UHF MR scanning protocol with a focus on quantitative and innovative metabolic imaging techniques to longitudinally evaluate the three most prevalent parkinsonian disorders, sPD, MSA, and PSP, respectively. C1 combines high-resolution structural imaging and multispectral quantitative and metabolic techniques with modern machine-learning techniques for mapping voxel-intrinsic MR data of dedicated brain regions. Data analysis will include quality control, coregistration and semantic data enrichment, training meaningful data representation in machine learning models and performing inference on them, as well as exploring other complementary functional ML targets. The overall aim is to identify characteristic disease specific MRI brain biosignatures that improve early differential diagnosis and our understanding of early disease mechanisms with the perspective for an undoubtedly diagnosis and an improved patient selection for future clinical trials.
DFG Programme
Research Units
