Choroid Plexus Volume and Susceptibility in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3

Motivation: The relationship between choroid plexus (CP) imaging profile in SCA3 and its clinical ataxia severity remains unclear. Goal(s): To evaluate CP volume, and CP susceptibility changes between SCA3 patients and healthy controls, and their clinical relevance in vivo. Approach: A deep learning based CP auto-segmentation method was used to generate CP mask. CP volume and susceptibility were then extracted by overlaying the mask on T1 and QSM images. Results: CP volume was greater in SCA3 patients, and was significantly associated with clinical ataxia severity. CP susceptibility was negatively associated with its volume in both patients and healthy controls. Impact: CP volume may be a novel neuroimaging marker associated with clinical ataxia severity. Assessing CP volume and other image profile may be a noninvasive and easy-to-implement approach for screening disease process in SCA3 patients.