Screening for Early Stages of Nigrostriatal Alteration (I): MR-T2-Relaxation and TCS in Healthy Subjects with Increased Echogenity of the SN

The diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) is primarily based on clinical signs and symptoms. Neuroimaging like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is regarded to reveal no consistent abnormalities and is only applied to differentiate IPD from secondary Parkinson syndromes. Recently, we and others demonstrated that transcranial ultrasound examination (TCS) allows one to detect a signal abnormality of the substantia nigra (SN) in most PD patients. Interestingly, the same echo feature can be found in about 8% to 10% of healthy subjects. This actual study aimed to demonstrate the MR-T2-relaxation to be sens…