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We have studied focal changes in dopaminergic function throughout the brain volume in early and advanced Parkinson's disease by applying statistical parametric mapping (SPM) to 3D [¹⁸F]dopa-PET. Data from seven early hemi-Parkinson's disease and seven advanced bilateral Parkinson's disease patients were compared with that from 12 normal controls. Parametric images of [¹⁸F]dopa influx rate constant (K_i^o) were generated for each subject from dynamic 3D [¹⁸F]dopa datasets and transformed into standard stereotactic space. Significant changes in mean voxel [¹⁸F]dopa K_i^o values between the normal control group and each Parkinson's disease group were localized with SPM. Conventional region of interest analysis was also applied to comparable regions on the untransformed image datasets. In early left hemi-Parkinson's disease, significant extrastriatal increases in [¹⁸F]dopa K_i^o were observed …