Harpreet Hyare1, Enrico De Vita2,
Gerard Ridgway3, Rachael Scahill4, Durrenajaf Siddique1,
Simon Mead1, Peter Rudge1, Tarek Yousry2,
John Collinge1, John Thornton5
1MRC Prion Unit, UCL Institute of
Neurology, London, United Kingdom; 2National Hospital for
Neurology and Neurosurgery; 3Dementia Research Centre, UCL
Institute of Neurology; 4Department of Neurodegenerative Diseases,
UCL Institute of Neurology; 5National Hospital for Neurology and
Neurosurgery, London, United Kingdom
Voxel
based morphometry in inherited prion diseases demonstrates regionally
specific atrophy in the basal ganglia, cerebellum and posterior cortical
areas but no significant differences in the white matter compared to
controls. Voxel-based analysis of
magnetisation transfer ratio (MTR) demonstrates decreased MTR in the same
grey matter regions but for the same threshold (p<0.001), there is
activation of more voxels including white matter voxels. The findings suggesting that MTR may be
more sensitive to microstructural changes and offers potential as a
neuroimaging biomarker in prion diseases.