NeuralCipher Research overview
The text below is the source article’s original abstract under a verified reuse license. cc by
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder featured impaired bioenergetics and mitochondrial dysfunction. Creatine (Cr) supplementation has been suggested as a pathophysiology-targeted treatment strategy; however, clinical outcomes remain inconsistent despite encouraging preclinical findings. The lack of methods to measure Cr distribution in the human brain may hinder the investigation. This study utilized a novel neuroimaging technique, guanidino chemical exchange saturation transfer (GuanCEST) MRI, to assess regional Cr levels in patients with PD (PwPD) and healthy controls (HCs). Twenty-five patients with PD and 24 age- and sex-matched HCs were enrolled. GuanCEST values in the caudate nucleus were significantly lower in PwPD (1.67 ± 0.26%) than HCs (1.82 ± 0.16%), p = 0.023. Moreover, GuanCEST signal reductions correlated with increasing PD severity, particularly in thalamic subregions. Kendall's correlation revealed a significant negative correlation between GuanCEST values in the internal medullary lamina and MDS-UPDRS-III scores (r = -0.44, p = 0.03). Regional ANCOVA further indicated that GuanCEST values in this region decreased by approximately 0.01% per unit increase in MDS-UPDRS-III (p = 0.007), adjusted for age and sex. These findings highlight GuanCEST MRI's potential as a noninvasive biomarker of Cr metabolism in PD, offering insights into disease mechanisms, therapeutic optimization, and clinical trial designs.
Scientific assessment
Research question
Assess the question within the original study’s scope.
Methods & sample
Check the source article for study design and sample details.
Key findings
An editorially approved findings summary is not yet published for this record.
Limitations
Generalizability, bias and clinical meaning require separate assessment.
Methods, samples and clinical conclusions are not inferred from bibliographic metadata.