Disruption of Inferior Longitudinal Fasciculus Microstructure in Parkinson's Disease: A Systematic Review of Diffusion Tensor Imaging Studies Publisher



Haghshomar M¹ ; Dolatshahi M¹ ; Sherbaf FG¹ ; Moghaddam HS¹ ; Shandiz MS² ; Aarabi MH¹ Show Affiliations
Source: Frontiers in Neurology Published:2018

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder accompanied by a series of pathological mechanisms which contribute to a variety of motor and non-motor symptoms. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in structural diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in PD which has shed light on our understanding of structural abnormalities underlying PD symptoms or its associations with pathological mechanisms. One of the white matter tracts shown to be disrupted in PD with a possible contribution to some PD symptoms is the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF). On the whole, lower ILF integrity contributes to thought disorders, impaired visual emotions, cognitive impairments such as semantic fluency deficits, and mood disorders. This review outlines the microstructural changes in ILF associated with systemic inflammation and various PD symptoms like cognitive decline, facial emotion recognition deficit, depression, color discrimination deficit, olfactory dysfunction, and tremor genesis. However, few studies have investigated DTI correlates of each symptom and larger studies with standardized imaging protocols are required to extend these preliminary findings and lead to more promising results. © 2018 Haghshomar, Dolatshahi, Ghazi Sherbaf, Sanjari Moghaddam, Shirin Shandiz and Aarabi.