Widespread Brain Atrophy Detected in Cognitively Impaired Parkinson’s Patients

Atrophy in the hippocampus, the region of the brain known for memory formation and storage, is evident in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients who have cognitive impairment, including early decline known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI), according to a new study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. The study appears in the December issue of the Archives of Neurology, a JAMA/Archives journal.

Using traditional imaging analyses, researchers discovered that Parkinson’s patients with MCI had more atrophy in the hippocampus, basal ganglia, amygdala and insula when compared with Parkinson’s patients who had normal cognition; meanwhile, Parkinson’s patients with normal cognition showed no significant loss of brain volume compared with healthy controls. For Parkinson’s patients suffering from full-blown dementia, atrophy was present not only in the hippocampus, but in the surrounding medial temporal lobe, which is crucial to memory and other cognitive abilities, as well. For more information about this study, click here to read the full release.