Abstract
The precise neural underpinnings of face pareidolia in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) remain unclear. We aimed to clarify face recognition network abnormalities associated with face pareidolia in such patients. Eighty-three patients with PD and 40 healthy controls were recruited in this study. Patients with PD were classified into pareidolia and nonpareidolia groups. Volumetric analyses revealed no significant differences between the pareidolia (n = 39) and nonpareidolia (n = 44) patient groups. We further observed decreased functional connectivity among regions of interest in the bilateral frontotemporal lobes in patients with pareidolia. Seed-based analysis using bilateral temporal fusiform cortices as seeds revealed significantly decreased connectivity with the bilateral inferior medial prefrontal cortices in the pareidolia group. Post hoc regression analysis further demonstrated that the severity of face pareidolia was negatively correlated with functional connectivity between the bilateral temporal fusiform and medial prefrontal cortices. Our findings suggest that top-down modulation of the face recognition network is impaired in patients with PD experiencing face pareidolia.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with an estimated prevalence of approximately 1% among adults over the age of 60 years[1]
In the region of interest (ROI)-based analysis, both the PD-p+ and PD-p− groups exhibited substantial differences in functional connectivity throughout the brain when compared to the healthy control (HC) group
The comparison between the two PD groups revealed that the PD-p+ group exhibited decreased functional connectivity in the networks of multiple regions in the frontal and temporal lobes, relative to that observed in the PD-p− group
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with an estimated prevalence of approximately 1% among adults over the age of 60 years[1]. The neural system for face recognition has been well documented and consists of several brain regions in the occipitotemporal cortex: the fusiform gyrus (fusiform face area: FFA), the inferior occipital cortex (occipital face area), and the posterior superior temporal sulcus. Among these areas, the FFA is considered crucial for face perception and identification[7,8,9,10]. Other studies with similar paradigms have suggested an association between FFA activation and face pareidolia;[15,16] substantial interindividual variability has been suggested[17] These findings imply a possible association between dysfunction of the face recognition network and pareidolia in PD. Noninvasive imaging techniques such as resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) have enabled us to investigate the status of brain networks in patients with PD
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