@article {1479, title = {Morphologic and functional changes in the unilateral 6-hydroxydopamine lesion rat model for Parkinson{\textquoteright}s disease discerned with microSPECT and quantitative MRI.}, journal = {Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine}, volume = {23}, year = {2010}, month = {04/2010}, pages = {65-75}, abstract = {OBJECT: In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the impact of neurodegeneration of the nigrostriatal tract in a rodent model of Parkinson{\textquoteright}s disease on the different MR contrasts (T(2), T(1), CBF and CBV) measured in the striatum. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Animals were injected with 6-hydroxydopamine (6OHDA) in the substantia nigra resulting in massive loss of nigrostriatal neurons and hence dopamine depletion in the ipsilateral striatum. Using 7T MRI imaging, we have quantified T(2), T(1), CBF and CBV in the striata of 6OHDA and control rats. To validate the lesion size, behavioral testing, dopamine transporter muSPECT and tyrosine hydroxylase staining were performed. RESULTS: No significant differences were demonstrated in the absolute MRI values between 6OHDA animals and controls; however, 6OHDA animals showed significant striatal asymmetry for all MRI parameters in contrast to controls. CONCLUSIONS: These PD-related asymmetry ratios might be the result of counteracting changes in both intact and affected striatum and allowed us to diagnose PD lesions. As lateralization is known to occur also in PD patients and might be expected in transgenic PD models as well, we propose that MR-derived asymmetry ratios in the striatum might be a useful tool for in vivo phenotyping of animal models of PD.}, keywords = {Animals, Corpus Striatum, Disease Models, Animal, Female, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Oxidopamine, Parkinsonian Disorders, Positron-Emission Tomography, Rats, Rats, Wistar, Reproducibility of Results, Sensitivity and Specificity}, issn = {1352-8661}, doi = {10.1007/s10334-010-0198-7}, author = {N. Van Camp and Vreys, Ruth and Koen Van Laere and E. Lauwers and Dirk Beque and Marleen Verhoye and Casteels, Cindy and Alfons Verbruggen and Zeger Debyser and Mortelmans, Luc and Jan Sijbers and Johan Nuyts and Veerle Baekelandt and Annemie Van Der Linden} } @article {1375, title = {Diffusion tensor imaging in a rat model of Parkinson{\textquoteright}s disease after lesioning of the nigrostriatal tract.}, journal = {NMR in biomedicine}, volume = {22}, year = {2009}, month = {2009 Aug}, pages = {697-706}, abstract = {Parkinson{\textquoteright}s disease (PD) is characterised by degeneration of the nigrostrial connection causing dramatic changes in the dopaminergic pathway underlying clinical pathology. Till now, no MRI tools were available to follow up any specific PD-related neurodegeneration. However, recently, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has received considerable attention as a new and potential in vivo diagnostic tool for various neurodegenerative diseases. To assess this in PD, we performed DTI in the acute 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) rat model of PD to evaluate diffusion properties in the degenerating nigrostriatal pathway and its connecting structures. Injection of a neurotoxin in the striatum causes retrograde neurodegeneration of the nigrostriatal tract, and selective degeneration of nigral neurons. The advantage of this model is that the lesion size is well controllable by the injected dose of the toxin. The degree of functional impairment was evaluated in vivo using the amphetamine rotation test and microPET imaging of the dopamine transporter (DAT). Despite a nearly complete lesion of the nigrostriatal tract, DTI changes were limited to the ipsilateral substantia nigra (SN). In this study we demonstrate, using voxel-based statistics (VBS), an increase in fractional anisotropy (FA), whereas all eigenvalues were significantly decreased. VBS enabled us to visualise neurodegeneration of a cluster of neurons but failed to detect degeneration of more diffuse microstructures such as the nigrostriatal fibres or the dopaminergic endings in the striatum. VBS without a priori information proved to be better than manual segmentation of brain structures as it does not suffer from volume averaging and is not susceptible to erroneous segmentations of brain regions that show very little contrast on MRI images such as SN.}, keywords = {Animals, Behavior, Animal, Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Disease Models, Animal, Female, Imaging, Three-Dimensional, Immunohistochemistry, Parkinson Disease, Positron-Emission Tomography, Rats, Rats, Wistar, Substantia Nigra}, issn = {1099-1492}, doi = {10.1002/nbm.1381}, author = {N. Van Camp and Ines Blockx and Marleen Verhoye and Casteels, Cindy and Coun, Frea and Alexander Leemans and Jan Sijbers and Veerle Baekelandt and Koen Van Laere and Annemie Van Der Linden} } @inproceedings {CampLaereVreysmverhoyeLauwersBequeMaesVerbruggenDebyserMortelmansjsijbersNuytsBaekelandtavdlinde2005, title = {In vivo multimodal (MRI, SPECT) imaging of the 6-OHDA rat model for Parkinson{\textquoteright}s disease correlated with behavior and histology}, booktitle = {Belgian Society of Neuroscience}, year = {2005}, month = {May}, author = {N. Van Camp and Koen Van Laere and Vreys, Ruth and Marleen Verhoye and E. Lauwers and Dirk Beque and F. Maes and Alfons Verbruggen and Zeger Debyser and L. Mortelmans and Jan Sijbers and Johan Nuyts and Veerle Baekelandt and Annemie Van Der Linden} } @inproceedings {CampLaereVreysmverhoyeLauwersBequeMaesVerbruggenDebyzerMortelmansjsijbersNuytsBaekelandtavdlinde2005, title = {In vivo multimodal (MRI,SPECT) imaging of the 6-OHDA rat model for Parkinson{\textquoteright}s disease correlated with behavior and histology}, booktitle = {XXIInd International Symposium on Cerebral Blood Flow, Metabolism and Function and VIIth International Conference of Quantification of Brain Function with PET}, year = {2005}, month = {June}, address = {Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands}, author = {N. Van Camp and Koen Van Laere and Vreys, Ruth and Marleen Verhoye and E. Lauwers and Dirk Beque and F. Maes and Alfons Verbruggen and Zeger Debyser and L. Mortelmans and Jan Sijbers and Johan Nuyts and Veerle Baekelandt and Annemie Van Der Linden} } @inproceedings {CampmverhoyealeemansPostnovBequeEyndenNuytsLauwersVerbruggenDebyzerBaekelandtClerckjsijbersLaereavdlinde2004, title = {In vivo multimodal imaging of a rat model for Parkinson{\textquoteright}s disease: high resolution micro-MRI, micro-SPECT and micro-CT}, booktitle = {21th Annual Scientific Meeting - European Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and Biology}, year = {2004}, pages = {22-23}, address = {Copenhagen, Denmark}, author = {N. Van Camp and Marleen Verhoye and Alexander Leemans and A. Postnov and Dirk Beque and J. Van den Eynden and Johan Nuyts and E. Lauwers and Alfons Verbruggen and Zeger Debyser and Veerle Baekelandt and N. De Clerck and Jan Sijbers and Koen Van Laere and Annemie Van Der Linden} }