Open AccessSix Visual Rating Scales as A Biomarker for Monitoring Atrophied Brain Volume in Parkinson’s Disease
Author(s) -
Ye Lin,
Ying Fu,
YiFang Zeng,
Jianping Hu,
Xia Lin,
Nai-Qing Cai,
Qiang Weng,
Yijing Zhao,
Yi Lin,
Dairong Cao,
Ning Wang
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
aging and disease
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.808
H-Index - 54
ISSN - 2152-5250
DOI - 10.14336/ad.2019.1103
Subject(s) - rating scale , atrophy , neuropsychology , medicine , biomarker , brain size , parkinson's disease , correlation , neuroimaging , audiology , psychology , cognition , disease , magnetic resonance imaging , psychiatry , radiology , developmental psychology , biochemistry , chemistry , geometry , mathematics
The focus of our investigation was to determine the feasibility of using six visual rating scales as whole-brain imaging markers for monitoring atrophied brain volume in Parkinson's disease (PD). This was a prospective cross-sectional single-center observational study. A total of 98 PD patients were enrolled and underwent an MRI scan and a battery of neuropsychological evaluations. The brain volume was calculated using the online resource MRICloud. Brain atrophy was rated based on six visual rating scales. Correlation analysis was performed between visual rating scores and brain volume and clinical features. We found a significant negative correlation between the total scores of visual rating scores and quantitative brain volume, indicating that six visual rating scales reliably reflect whole brain atrophy in PD. Multiple linear regression-based analyses indicated severer non-motor symptoms were significantly associated with higher scores on the visual rating scales. Furthermore, we performed sample size calculations to evaluate the superiority of visual rating scales; the result show that using total scores of visual rating scales as an outcome measure, sample sizes for differentiating cognition injury require significantly fewer subjects (n = 177) compared with using total brain volume (n = 2524). Our data support the use of the total visual rating scores rather than quantitative brain volume as a biomarker for monitoring cerebral atrophy.