Differences in the Regional T1/T2-Weighted Ratio Index Between Healthy Controls and Patients With Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

BACKGROUND

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a four-repeat tauopathy, and the differentiation of PSP from other neurodegenerative disorders is a common clinical problem. We applied a T1-/T2-weighted ratio imaging technique based on standard clinical MRI to investigate PSP-related changes in neuroimaging data.

METHOD: Twenty patients with PSP and 34 healthy participants underwent an examination to obtain T1- and T2-weighted images at our hospital. We retrospectively computed each subject's T1/T2-weighted ratio index to use as a proxy for the brain's myelin content, and we analyzed the differences in the index values between the PSP and control groups.

RESULTS

Our analysis revealed the precise differences in the T1/T2-weighted ratio index between the PSP and control groups and demonstrated that the patients with PSP showed significant reductions of the T1/T2-weighted ratio index in the midbrain, posterior commissure, caudate, thalamus, and bilateral insulae compared to the healthy controls.

CONCLUSIONS

These results show that the T1/T2-weighted ratio approach is useful to distinguish patients with PSP from healthy subjects.