Cortical Activation During Finger Tapping Task Performance in Parkinson's Disease Is Influenced by Priming Conditions: An ALE Meta-Analysis.

Jingjing Li,Zhongquan Du,Xueqing Qiu,Zheng Liu,Ningning Zhu,Xia Xu

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2021.774656

Abstract

The finger tapping task (FTT) is commonly used in the evaluation of dyskinesia among patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Past research has indicated that cortical activation during FTT is different between self-priming and cue-priming conditions. To evaluate how priming conditions affect the distribution of brain activation and the reorganization of brain function, and to investigate the differences in brain activation areas during FTT between PD patients and healthy control (HC) participants, we conducted an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis on the existing literature. Analyses were based on data from 15 independent samples that included 181 participants with PD and 164 HC participants. We found that there was significantly more activation in the middle frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, post-central gyrus, superior parietal lobe, inferior parietal lobule, cerebellum, and basal ganglia during FTT in PD patients than in HCs. In self-priming conditions, PD patients had less activation in the parietal lobe and insular cortex but more activation in the cerebellum than the HCs. In cue-priming conditions, the PD patients showed less activation in the cerebellum and frontal-parietal areas and more activation in the superior frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus than the HCs. Our study illustrates that cue-priming manipulations affect the distribution of activity in brain regions involved in motor control and motor performance in PD patients. In cue-priming conditions, brain activity in regions associated with perceptual processing and inhibitory control was enhanced, while sensory motor areas associated with attention and motor control were impaired.

Highlights

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease among middle-aged and elderly people
The Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) (ON) score of the PD participants included in the study was 22.86 ± 5.97, which was equivalent to stages III of the Hoehn-Yahr scale, indicating mild to moderate disease severity of the participants
The results of the present study demonstrated that during the finger tapping task (FTT), the PD patients had a wide range of activated regions, including the middle frontal gyrus, precentral gyrus, post-central gyrus, superior parietal lobe, inferior parietal lobule, cerebellum, and basal ganglia

Summary

Introduction

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease among middle-aged and elderly people. Its clinical features mainly include bradykinesia, rigid muscles, static tremor, postural instability, and gait disorders (Marsden, 1994; Tolosa et al, 2009; for reviews on the history of PD, see Goetz, 2011) These symptoms have significant influences on one’s survival, quality of life, and PD FTT ALE Meta-Analysis nursing home placement demand. When performing the FTT, PD patients tend to show lower tapping speed and a decreased range of motion (Lee et al, 2010; Stegemöller et al, 2015). Owing to their abnormal basal ganglia output, PD patients lack the finer cortical control and greater facilitation that the finger task demands

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