Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients have difficulty in performing a dual-task. It has been suggested that the cerebellum is important in dual-tasking. We used functional MRI to investigate the role of the cerebellum in performing a dual motor and cognitive task in PD patients. We have examined whether there are any areas additionally activated for dual-task performance, and compared the neural activity and functional connectivity pattern in the cerebellum between PD patients and healthy controls. We found that the right cerebellar vermis and left lobule V of cerebellar anterior lobe were additionally activated for dual-task performance in healthy controls and for motor task in PD patients. We didn’t find any cerebellar regions additionally activated while performing dual-task in PD patients. In addition, the right cerebellar vermis had enhanced connectivity with motor and cognitive associated networks in PD patients. PD patients have limited cerebellar resources that are already utilized for single tasks and, for dual tasks, cannot augment as necessary in order to integrate motor and cognitive networks.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients have difficulty in performing a dual-task
We found that the right cerebellar vermis and left lobule V of cerebellar anterior lobe were activated for dual-task performance in healthy controls and for motor task in PD patients
In a recent study, using a dual-task paradigm with a simple motor task and a cognitive task, we found that the cerebellar vermis and lobule V of the cerebellar anterior lobe are activated for dual-task in healthy subjects, and these cerebellar regions had functional connectivity with extensive motor- and cognitive-related regions[12]
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients have difficulty in performing a dual-task. It has been suggested that the cerebellum is important in dual-tasking. We used functional MRI to investigate the role of the cerebellum in performing a dual motor and cognitive task in PD patients. We have examined whether there are any areas activated for dual-task performance, and compared the neural activity and functional connectivity pattern in the cerebellum between PD patients and healthy controls. A few recent studies have investigated dual-tasking related functional or structural connectivity in PD patients with freezing of gait. In a recent study, using a dual-task paradigm with a simple motor task and a cognitive (counting) task, we found that the cerebellar vermis and lobule V of the cerebellar anterior lobe are activated for dual-task in healthy subjects, and these cerebellar regions had functional connectivity with extensive motor- and cognitive-related regions[12]. In the current study, we used functional MRI (fMRI) to investigate the neural activity and network connectivity in the cerebellum during execution of dual-task in PD patients.
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