Striatal dopamine in Parkinson disease: A meta-analysis of imaging studies.

Valtteri Kaasinen, Tero Vahlberg

Journal: Annals of neurology 2018;82(6):873-882

PMID: 29165839

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Abstract

A meta-analysis of 142 positron emission tomography and single photon emission computed tomography studies that have investigated striatal presynaptic dopamine function in Parkinson disease (PD) was performed. Subregional estimates of striatal dopamine metabolism are presented. The aromatic L-amino-acid decarboxylase (AADC) defect appears to be consistently smaller than the dopamine transporter and vesicular monoamine transporter 2 defects, suggesting upregulation of AADC function in PD. The correlation between disease severity and dopamine loss appears linear, but the majority of longitudinal studies point to a negative exponential progression pattern of dopamine loss in PD. Ann Neurol 2017;82:873-882.

Address: Division of Clinical Neurosciences, Turku University Hospital.; Department of Neurology, University of Turku.; Turku PET Centre, University of Turku.; Departments of Clinical Medicine.; Biostatistics, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

DOI: 10.1002/ana.25103