Morphological MRI investigations of the hypothalamus in 232 individuals with Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND: The pathophysiology of the hypothalamic involvement in Parkinson's disease (PD) is not well understood. The objective of this study was the quantification of hypothalamic volumes in vivo in PD. METHODS: High-resolution T1 -weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from 232 individuals with PD and 130 healthy non-PD individuals were used for quantification of the hypothalamic volumes. RESULTS: The hypothalamus in PD was not atrophied, as indicated by volumetric analyses in the prospectively collected subcohort (30 PD, V = 921 ± 78 mm3 vs 30 non-PD, V = 917 ± 67 mm3 ; P = 0.850) and validated in a large cohort (202 PD, V = 925 ± 88 mm3 vs 100 non-PD, V = 932 ± 114 mm3 ; P = 0.602). CONCLUSIONS: Hypothalamic involvement in PD as shown by a large body of histopathological evidence does not appear to be detectable by MRI-based volumetric quantification. © 2019 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.