1SPMMRC,
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Notts, United Kingdom; 2Division
of Radiological and Imaging Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham,
Notts, United Kingdom; 3School of Psychology, University of
Nottingham, Nottingham, Notts, United Kingdom; 4Division of
Pathology, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, Notts,
United Kingdom; 5Division of Neurology, Nottingham University
Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, Notts, United Kingdom
Parkinsons disease (PD) is caused by loss of dopaminergic cells particularly from the nigrosomes of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc). In this study we correlated in vivo, post mortem MRI and histochemical data proving the ability of high resolution 7T MRI imaging to directly visualise nigrosome 1. Further assessment of T2*w scans of PD patients versus healthy controls by the neurologists suggested that the absence of nigrosome 1 in the SNpc on MR scans may provide a neuroimaging diagnostic test for the Parkinson's disease.