Frontoparietal network resilience is associated with protection against cognitive decline in Parkinson\u2019s disease

Arianna D Cascone,Eran Dayan,Miriam Sklerov,Stephanie Langella

doi:10.1038/s42003-021-02478-3

Arianna D Cascone, Eran Dayan + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02478-3

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Abstract

Though Parkinson’s disease is primarily defined as a movement disorder, it is also characterized by a range of non-motor symptoms, including cognitive decline. The onset and progression of cognitive decline in individuals with Parkinson’s disease is variable, and the neurobiological mechanisms that contribute to, or protect against, cognitive decline in Parkinson’s disease are poorly understood. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data collected from individuals with Parkinson’s disease with and without cognitive decline, we examined the relationship between topological brain-network resilience and cognition in Parkinson’s disease. By leveraging network attack analyses, we demonstrate that relative to individuals with Parkinson’s disease experiencing cognitive decline, the frontoparietal network in cognitively stable individuals with Parkinson’s disease is significantly more resilient to network perturbation. Our findings suggest that the topological robustness of the frontoparietal network is associated with the absence of cognitive decline in individuals with Parkinson’s disease.

Highlights

Though Parkinson’s disease is primarily defined as a movement disorder, it is characterized by a range of non-motor symptoms, including cognitive decline
The Parkinson’s disease (PD) groups did not differ in initial Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scores (t57 = 0.2858, p = 0.78); there were longitudinal differences in cognition between groups, indicated by a significant interaction between clinical group and time of evaluation (F(1,57) = 27.93, p < 0.0001; Supplementary Table 1) found in repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA)
We found that there were no significant differences between patient groups in the proportion of individuals who were taking levodopa, dopamine agonist, or a combination of both at the time of MoCAinitial scoring (χ2(2) = 1.38, p = 0.50), nor at the time of UPDRS scoring (χ2(2) = 1.23, p = 0.54)

Summary

Introduction

Though Parkinson’s disease is primarily defined as a movement disorder, it is characterized by a range of non-motor symptoms, including cognitive decline. We evaluated whether individuals with PD with and without longitudinal cognitive decline exhibit differing levels of topological resilience against targeted attacks.

Results

Conclusion