Metabolic rates in small brain nuclei of patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease

Introduction: Several studies have reported changes of regional cerebral metabolic rates for glucose (rCMRGlc) in idiopathic Parkinsons's Disease (IPD). However, results have been controversial due to restrictions of spatial resolution of conventional PET scanners. A new high resolution research tomograph (HRRT, Siemens/CTI) permits detection and quantitative analysis of small brain nuclei (Heiss et al. 2004). This tomograph was applied to study changes of CMRGlc in patients with IPD. Methods: In 10 patients with mild to moderate IPD (7 male, 3 female, mean age 62 years, range 46–80 years; mean Hoehn & Yahr stag…