Nigrosomes
Updates to Article Attributes
Nigrosomesare small clusters of dopaminergic cells within the substantia nigra that exhibit calbindin D28K negativity on immunohistochemistry. Five nigrosomes measuring up up to a few millimetres in size have have been described with the largest labelled as nigrosome-11.
NigrasomeNigrosome-1
Nigrosome-1 within within the posterior third of thesubstantia nigra is able to be visualised on high resolution T2*/SWI weighted MRI. This nigrosome returns high signal on axialSWI in a linear or comma shape. It is surrounded anteriorly, laterally and medially by low SWI signal intensity which resembles the the distinctive split tail of a swallow and hence is referred to as the swallow tail appearance.
NigrasomeNigrosome-1 contains the largest proportion of neurons affected inParkinson's disease, a condition that causes the high high SWI signal within nigrosome-1 to be absent. Absence of the normal swallow tail appearance of nigrosome-1 is reported to be a reliable sign of Parkinson's disease 1. There are two main possible mechanisms for this, increased iron content or decreased neuromelanin content with decreased iron storage capacity leading to more free iron with paramagnetic properties 2.
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