The XXXX nucleus accumbens suffers @entity304 -related shrinkage: a novel finding.

@entity1 @entity304 @entity191 @entity146
PURPOSE: The @entity1 nucleus accumbens (NA) plays an important role in motivation and emotional processes and is involved in some of the most disabling @entity146 such as @entity191 ( @entity191 ). The purpose of our study was to check out the potential existence of a statistically significant difference in NA size between parkinsonian and non-parkinsonian individuals, through studying brain magnetic resonance images (MRIs). METHODS: For our study we used 52 NAs from 26 cerebral MRIs from neurosurgical @entity1 . Of these MRIs, 15 were preoperative from @entity1 with advanced @entity191 who underwent bilateral deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus. The group of @entity191 came from the rest 11 individuals. We measured the absolute and relative NA maximum transverse diameter (D (max)), and absolute and relative NA width at a specific transverse plane. RESULTS: We found a statistically significant difference of the mean value of the D (max) (absolute and relative) between the two groups. The mean percentage reduction of the NA size was 11.77% represented by the relative D (max). CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first report of @entity304 -related shrinkage of the @entity1 NA. Further research is needed to identify whether a respective shrinkage is also observed in @entity1 with early @entity191 and whether this atrophy is correlated with @entity146 (perhaps mediated by a malfunctioning NA) that occur in @entity191 .
