Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD) is mainly characterized by dopamine depletion of the cortico-basal ganglia (CBG) motor circuit. Given that dopamine dysfunction could affect functional brain network efficiency, the present study utilized resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) and graph theoretical approach to investigate the topological efficiency changes of the CBG motor network in patients with PD during a relatively hypodopaminergic state (12 hours after a last dose of dopamimetic treatment). We found that PD compared with controls had remarkable decreased efficiency in the CBG motor network, with the most pronounced changes observed in rostral supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), caudal SMA (SMA-proper), primary motor cortex (M1), primary somatosensory cortex (S1), thalamus (THA), globus pallidus (GP), and putamen (PUT). Furthermore, reduced efficiency in pre-SMA, M1, THA and GP was significantly correlated with Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) motor scores in PD patients. Together, our results demonstrate that individuals with PD appear to be less effective at information transfer within the CBG motor pathway, which provides a novel perspective on neurobiological explanation for the motor symptoms in patients. These findings are in line with the pathophysiology of PD, suggesting that network efficiency metrics may be used to identify and track the pathology of PD.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by a specific array of motor symptoms, including slowness of movement, rigidity, tremor at rest and postural instability [1]
Voxel-wise efficiency map of the cortico-basal ganglia (CBG) motor network Compared with healthy controls, PD exhibited significantly decreased (FDR correction, p,0.05) efficiency in the CBG motor network, especially the reduced nodal efficiency in the left SMAproper, right pre-supplementary motor area (SMA), and bilateral M1, postcentral gyrus (S1), THA, PUT and globus pallidus (GP) (Figure 2, brain areas with blue color; Table 2) was observed
We did not found any brain areas showing significant increased efficiency in PD
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by a specific array of motor symptoms, including slowness of movement, rigidity, tremor at rest and postural instability [1]. There is evidence that PD had anatomical connectivity deficits in the CBG motor pathway [18]. Functional and anatomical alterations in the CBG motor pathway observed in PD patients, the topological changes within the entire loop remain largely obscure. According to former research, the neurodegenerative processes for PD are not diffuse, random, or confluent, but instead target specific large-scale neural networks [19,20,21]. This indicates that taking a network perspective on PD could be fundamental for understanding the pathophysiology of this disease.
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