PO071 Mri assessment of neurovascular changes in idiopathic parkinson’s disease

The extent to which neurovascular mechanisms are involved in Idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (IPD) is not well defined, but is important because this might open up new therapeutic approaches. We have investigated neurovascular status (NVS) in IPD using novel MRI techniques. Fifty-one patients with IPD (mean age 69.0±7.7 years) (21 tremor dominant, 24 postural instability and gait disorder and 6 intermediates) were compared with 18 control positive (CP) subjects with a history of clinical cerebrovascular disease (mean age 70.1±8.0 years) and 34 control negative (CN) subjects without a history of cerebrovascular disease (mean age 67.4±7.6 years). Each underwent a 3 T MRI protocol including arterial spin labelling measurements of cerebral blood flow (CBF) and arterial arrival time (AAT) and dynamic contrast enhanced measures of blood-brain barrier integrity. IPD subjects showed diffuse regions of significantly prolonged AAT and focal regions of lower CBF by comparison with CN, comparable to CP subjects. IPD subjects also showed increased leakiness of the blood-brain barrier in basal ganglia regions compared to the CN group, with a similar pattern between IPD phenotypes. These data provide evidence of altered NVS in IPD.