Abstract #3024

Swallow tail sign and nigrosome 1 - close but not quite the same

Malte Brammerloh^1,2, Evgeniya Kirilina^1,3, Anneke Alkemade⁴, Pierre-Louis Bazin^1,4, Caroline Jantzen¹, Carsten Jäger^1,5, Andreas Herrler⁶, Kerrin J. Pine¹, Penny Gowland⁷, Markus Morawski⁵, Birte Forstmann⁴, and Nikolaus Weiskopf^1,2

¹Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany, ²Faculty of Physics and Earth Sciences, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany, ³Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, ⁴Integrative Model-based Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, ⁵Paul Flechsig Institute of Brain Research, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, ⁶Department of Anatomy and Embryology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands, ⁷Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Center, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

MRI holds great promise for diagnosing Parkinson's disease, based on the disappearance of the swallow tail sign in T2*-weighted images, which past research assumed to be nigrosome 1. We studied the sign's anatomical underpinning, combining ultra-high field MRI in vivo and postmortem, 3D-reconstructed microscopy, and immunohistochemistry. Based on block-face images and calbindin-D28K immunohistochemistry, we constructed a 3D nigrosome atlas. We show that nigrosome 1 extends beyond the swallow tail sign by co-registering this atlas to in vivo MRI. As the swallow tail sign only partially overlaps with but is not identical to nigrosome 1, its interpretation needs to be revised.

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