Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Neurol. Mar 28, 2015; 5(1): 1-4
Published online Mar 28, 2015. doi: 10.5316/wjn.v5.i1.1
Mavridis’ atrophy in Parkinson’s disease-five years later: Future perspectives
Ioannis N Mavridis, Efstratios-Stylianos Pyrgelis
Ioannis N Mavridis, Department of Neurosurgery, “K.A.T.-N.R.C.” General Hospital of Attica, 14561 Athens, Greece
Efstratios-Stylianos Pyrgelis, Department of Neurology, “K.A.T.-N.R.C.” General Hospital of Attica, 14561Athens, Greece
Author contributions: Mavridis IN and Pyrgelis ES reviewed the literature and wrote this paper.
Conflict-of-interest: We have no conflicting interests (including but not limited to commercial, personal, political, intellectual, or religious interests) related to this work.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ioannis N Mavridis, MD, PhD, Department of Neurosurgery, “K.A.T.-N.R.C.” General Hospital of Attica, Nikis str. 2, Kifissia, 14561 Athens, Greece. pap-van@otenet.gr
Telephone: +30-697-8327199 Fax: +30-210-2833600
Received: January 18, 2015
Peer-review started: January 18, 2015
First decision: February 7, 2015
Revised: February 14, 2015
Accepted: March 5, 2015
Article in press: March 9, 2015
Published online: March 28, 2015
Processing time: 72 Days and 4.7 Hours
Abstract

Mavridis’ atrophy (MA) is called the human nucleus accumbens (NA) atrophy in Parkinson’s disease (PD). MA begins in early-stage PD patients and is correlated with psychiatric symptoms that occur in PD, mainly apathy and impulsive behavior. It is also associated with cognitive PD symptoms. Purpose of this editorial was to discuss the future perspectives of MA as a pathological and imaging finding. MA is obviously part of the degeneration of the dopaminergic nigrostriatal system that occurs in PD and this also explains the fact that MA precedes clinical phenotype. But does the human NA follow the same pattern of degeneration? It would be quite interesting to have a post-mortem pathological study focused on the NA of parkinsonic individuals. Further questions that remain to be answered are whether all parkinsonics suffer MA and whether this phenomenon is also associated with motor PD symptoms. MA as an imaging finding could be a risk factor for the expression and/or severity of specific PD symptoms. It has therefore to be tested whether the presence of MA is related, for example, with the expression and/or severity of motor PD symptoms and whether the severity of MA affects the severity of specific psychiatric symptoms (apathy, compulsive behavior) of parkinsonic individuals. Such clinical studies, that could provide answers to these vital questions, can be easily preformed given the high frequency of PD in modern populations. Future research efforts are mandatory to enrich our knowledge of MA, namely its underlying mechanisms, its pathological features and its clinical consequences.

Keywords: Parkinson’s disease; Mavridis’ atrophy; Nucleus accumbens; Neuroimaging; Neuropathology; Substantia nigra

Core tip: Mavridis’ atrophy (MA) is the nucleus accumbens atrophy in Parkinson’s disease (PD). MA begins in early-stage PD patients and is correlated with psychiatric and cognitive PD symptoms. MA is obviously part of the dopaminergic nigrostriatal degeneration that occurs in PD. It would be interesting to have a post-mortem pathological study focused on the nucleus accumbens of parkinsonic individuals. MA as an imaging finding could be a risk factor for the expression and/or severity of specific symptoms. Thus it has to be tested whether the presence of MA is related, for example, with the expression and/or severity of motor PD symptoms.