A resting-state functional MRI study in Parkinson's disease

Objectives: Blood-oxygen-level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging(BOLD-fMRI) was used to investigate the resting-state brain functional abnormalities in patients with Parkinson's disease(PD). Materials and Methods: Totally 68 clinically diagnosed PD patients with at least 12 hours withdrawal time and age- and gender-matched 36 normal controls(NC) were included to take clinical scale evaluation and resting-state BOLD-fMRI examination. All subjects were scanned with Philips 3.0 Tesla MRI system. The fMRI data were processed and analysed by DPARSF V2.0 soft and REST V1.8 soft. Two-sample t-test was used to examine the mALFF differences between PD group and NC group. Results: Compared to NC group, PD group had significantly decreased mALFF values in extensive brain regions including bilateral SMA, middle and posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, lateral globus pallidus, dorsal thalamus, anterior lobe of cerebellum, and right local primary motor cortex, insular cortex, caudate nucleus, putamen, posterior lobe of cerebellum as well as increased mALFF values in several brain regions including extensive cortex of bilateral anterior frontal, parietal and temporal lobe, and left occipital primary visual cortex(P0.05, AlphaSim corrected). Conclusions: Resting-state brain functional abnormalities of PD patients are extensive. The neuronal activity decreases mainly in several areas including motor regulation related brain regions, default mode network and limbic system, and increases mainly in extensive cortex of anterior frontal, parietal, temporal lobe and primary visual cortex.