Diffusion Properties of Cortico-Striatal White Matter Tractography as Sensistive Markers of Parkinson's Disease

Yonas Weldeselassie¹, Ghassan Hamarneh¹, Martin J. McKeown², Samantha Palmer², M. Stella Atkins¹

We investigate various properties of cortico-striatal white matter fiber tracts from Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Images in control and Parkinson's Disease (PD) subjects. After image acquisition, manual delineation of primary motor cortex and striatum, and generation of cortico-striatal white matter fiber tracts, we collect and analyse fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD) and divergence (DIV) of the major eigenvectors field along the fiber bundles to see if these features can be used as biomarkers in the classification of PD subjects from controls. Our results show that PD subjects have reduced FA and MD but increased DIV values of major eigenvectors field.