Approved Research

Investigation of imaging markers for Parkinson's disease

Lay summary

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder with manifestations of resting tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity, and postural gait disturbance, which will double in prevalence in the next 25 years, affecting 10 million people worldwide. Currently, there is no cure or treatment that stops or slows down disease progression in individuals with PD. The lack of valid, reliable biomarkers that can objectively predict the occurrence and monitor the progression of PD is believed to be an important reason hindering the progress toward early neuroprotective or disease-modifying therapeutics.

Advanced neuroimaging modalities provide an in vivo opportunity to visualize the neuroanatomical and functional signatures, and have the potential to identify disease-specific biomarkers of PD. There is accumulating evidence that some MRI methods, such as high-resolution structural imaging, diffusion-weighted imaging, quantitative susceptibility mapping, and functional MRI, may be useful in early diagnosis and monitoring disease progression. In this project, based on the multimodal neuroimage data (such as structural MRI, diffusion-weighted imaging, functional MRI, and quantitative susceptibility mapping) and genomic and clinical information from UK Biobank database, and combined with artificial intelligence approaches, we aim to explore neuroimaging markers: 1) to predict the occurrence of PD, and 2) to monitor the progression of PD. This project will last for 3 years.

By the end of the project, we expect to have developed reliable imaging markers that can help identify high-risk individuals, early diagnosis and monitor disease progression of PD, and will help to facilitating the development and evaluation of new treatment strategies. In addition, this project may provide new insights regarding fundamental pathologic processes in PD, leading to a better scientific understanding of the disease process.