This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on Web of Science (24)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Movement Disorders  • Radiologic Imaging  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Karsten Specht, PhD; Martina Minnerop, MD; Michael Abele, MD; Jürgen Reul, MD; Ullrich Wüllner, MD; Thomas Klockgether, MD

Arch Neurol. 2003;60:1431-1435.

Background  Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a sporadic neurodegenerative disease. According to the clinical presentation a parkinsonian type and a cerebellar type (MSA-C) are distinguished.

Objective  To study the morphological alterations of MSA-C–affected brains in vivo using voxel-based morphometric analysis of magnetic resonance images.

Setting  University hospital.

Patients  Fourteen patients (5 men and 9 women) with MSA-C (mean age [SD], 59.4 [7.4] years; mean [SD] disease duration, 3.7 [1.4] years) and 13 healthy control subjects (5 men and 8 women) (mean [SD] age, 55.1 [6.9] years) were studied.

Methods  T1-weighted magnetic resonance images were normalized to a common stereotaxic space and segmented into gray and white matter. Data were analyzed using statistical parametric mapping (SPM99).

Results  Gray matter was reduced in the brainstem and the anterior lobe of the cerebellum. Reduction of white matter was observed in the middle cerebellar peduncles, cerebellar white matter, and brainstem. The inverted comparison revealed an increase of white matter density along the pyramidal tracts.

Conclusions  Voxel-based morphometry revealed a significant loss of cerebellar and brainstem tissue in MSA-C. It allowed a precise anatomical localization and a distinction between gray and white matter densities. In addition, our data point to a particular involvement of the pyramidal tract in MSA-C.

From the Medical Centre Bonn (Drs Specht and Reul) and the Department of Neurology (Drs Minnerop, Abele, Wüllner, and Klockgether), University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Cognitive impairments in multiple system atrophy: MSA-C vs MSA-P
Kawai et al.
Neurology 2008;70:1390-1396.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Voxel-based morphometry shows no decreases in cerebellar gray matter volume in essential tremor
Daniels et al.
Neurology 2006;67:1452-1456.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT