fMRI study of motor cortex activity modulation in early Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease is a neurological disorder associated with the disfunction of dopaminergic pathways of the basal ganglia, mainly resulting in a progressive alteration in the execution of voluntary movements. We present a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study on cortical activations during simple motor task performance, in six early-stage hemiparkinsonian patients and seven healthy volunteers. We acquired data in three sessions, during which subjects performed the task with right or left hand, or bimanually.

In vivo quantitative 1H MRS of cerebellum and evaluation of quantitation reproducibility by simulation of different levels of noise and spectral resolution.

A quantitative analysis of cerebellar metabolites in normal subjects has been performed by proton MR spectroscopy (MRS) with relaxation time correction. Quantitation was carried out in seven healthy human subjects with the well-established LCModel program. The prior knowledge utilized for quantitation was obtained from solutions containing the major brain metabolites and MRS investigated under the same experimental conditions.