Striatal Glucose Metabolism and Pattern of Cerebral Regional Interactions in Choreic Disorders: A Positron Emission Tomography Study in Familial Inverted Chorea

With positron emission tomography (PET), cerebral glucose metabolism was studied in 5 patients with familial inverted chorea, a progressive choreiform disease with no dementia, and in age‐ and sex‐matched control subjects. Computed tomography scans excluded cortical or striatal atrophy. PET scans showed no group differences in striatal glucose metabolism. However, when a discriminant analysis method was applied to the PET metabolic data, a discriminant function, reflecting functional interactions involving the striatum, successfully distinguished the patients from the control subjects. These results indicate striatal involvement in the pathophysiology of familial inverted chorea, and emphasize the importance of alternative methods of analyzing regional PET data.