Occipital hypometabolism is a risk factor for conversion to Parkinson’s disease in isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder

Purpose: Isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD) patients are at high risk of developing clinical syndromes of the α-synuclein spectrum. Progression markers are needed to determine the neurodegenerative changes and to predict their conversion. Brain imaging with ¹⁸F-FDG PET in iRBD is promising, but longitudinal studies are scarce. We investigated the regional brain changes in iRBD over time, related to phenoconversion.

Methods: Twenty iRBD patients underwent two consecutive ¹⁸F-FDG PET brain scans and clinical assessments (3.7 ± 0.6 years apart). Seventeen patients also underwent ¹²³I-MIBG and ¹²³I-FP-CIT SPECT scans at baseline. Four subjects phenoconverted to Parkinson’s disease (PD) during follow-up. ¹⁸F-FDG PET scans were compared to controls with a voxel-wise single-subject procedure. The relationship between regional brain changes in metabolism and PD-related pattern scores (PDRP) was investigated.

Results: Individual hypometabolism t-maps revealed three scenarios: (1) normal ¹⁸F-FDG PET scans at baseline and follow-up (N = 10); (2) normal scans at baseline but occipital or occipito-parietal hypometabolism at follow-up (N = 4); (3) occipital hypometabolism at baseline and follow-up (N = 6). All patients in the last group had pathological ¹²³I-MIBG and ¹²³I-FP-CIT SPECT. iRBD converters (N = 4) showed occipital hypometabolism at baseline (third scenario). At the group level, hypometabolism in the frontal and occipito-parietal regions and hypermetabolism in the cerebellum and limbic regions were progressive over time. PDRP z-scores increased over time (0.54 ± 0.36 per year). PDRP expression was driven by occipital hypometabolism and cerebellar hypermetabolism.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that occipital hypometabolism at baseline in iRBD implies a short-term conversion to PD. This might help in stratification strategies for disease-modifying trials.