Iron quantification in Parkinson's disease using an age-based threshold on susceptibility maps: The advantage of local versus entire structure iron content measurements

BACKGROUND: Elevated brain iron has been observed in Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) within the deep gray matter. Using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) and a thresholded high-iron region, we quantified iron content in the midbrain of patients with Parkinson's disease as a function of age. METHODS: We used MRI to scan 24 IPD patients at 3-Tesla. Susceptibility-weighted images were collected with the following parameters, TE: 6 and …