Neurosciences & Brain Imaging Open Access

Abstract

Determining association between Polygenic Risk Scores and Cortical Thickness in Parkinson. Disease Patients: An MRI(Magnetic resonance imaging) Structural Study

Ishar Alexander Kalsi

Polygenic risk score (PRS) is a number derived from summing the weighted effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) linked to an increased risk of disease. SNPs associated with increased risk derive from GenomeWide Association Studies (GWAS) that have compared large cohorts of PD patients to controls to determine which genetic loci are associated with PD. In Parkinson’s Disease (PD), higher PRS has been associated with faster motor and cognitive decline. However, the extent to which cortical brain changes in PD patients are associated with PRS has not been reported in the literature. This is an exploratory study to determine if there is evidence for such a correlation that warrants further investigation