Objective: This study was aimed to investigate whether asymmetry of dopamine depletion through dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging is associated with motor or non-motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: One of hall marks of PD is asymmetry of motor symptom. However, to our knowledge, there has been no report of asymmetry of dopamine depletion using DAT scans.

Methods: Thirty non-demented patients with PD (17 men and 13 women with a mean age of 65.8 ± 7.9 years) included in the study. We assessed not only motor symptom using the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS)-III, but also non-motor symptoms including global cognition, frontal function, depression, anxiety, sleep, fatigue, using various non-motor symptom scales. Dopamine transporter (DAT) binding in the striatum was measured by 18F-FP-CIT PET. Then we divided PD patients into two groups (more asymmetric vs. less asymmetric) on caudate nucleus and putamen respectively.

Results: More asymmetric group of dopamine depletion in the caudate nucleus showed significant lower scores for global cognition, compared with less asymmetric group. However, no other motor and non-motor symptoms were not different between the two groups (Table 1). Besides, More asymmetric group of dopamine depletion in the putamen did not reveal any difference in various motor and non-motor symptoms (Table 2).

Conclusions: As a pilot study, this study suggests that asymmetry of dopamine depletion in PD might not associated with motor and non-motor symptoms, although global cognition was related with asymmetric dopaminergic loss in the caudate nucleus.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/relation-of-asymmetry-of-dopamine-depletion-with-motor-or-non-motor-symptoms-in-patients-with-parkinsons-disease-a-pilot-study/