Browsing by Author "Hutchinson, Michael"

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    Inversion recovery MRI in idiopathic Parkinson disease is a very sensitive tool to assess neurodegeneration in the substantia nigra: Preliminary investigation
    (2006) Raff, Ulrich; Hutchinson, Michael; Rojas, Gonzalo M.; Huete, Isidro
    Rationale and Objectives. Segmented inversion recovery (IR) ratio imaging (SIRRIM) has been established as a sensitive tool to assess neurodegeneration of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNC) in patients with idiopathic Parkinson disease (IPD). The obtained results suggest the possibility of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a biological marker for IPD. The strength and a parsimonious analysis of the technique are discussed to assess the potential of using MRI as a biological marker for IPD and improve the differential diagnosis of sporadic Parkinson disease. Our hypothesis states that the magnetic resonance SIRRIM technique allows direct visualization and quantitation of neural cell loss in the SNc and therefore could become a reliable biological marker for Parkinson disease. To achieve this goal, some key aspects of data acquisition and data analysis need to be addressed. The clinical impact of the SIRRIM technique could be considerable, considering that it might become a viable surrogate to other techniques.