Aberrant functional connectivity within the basal ganglia of patients with Parkinson's disease

Description: Aim: to assess whether changes in resting state fMRI (RS-fMRI) functional connectivity within the basal ganglia network (BGN) observed in Parkinson's disease (PD) are disease-specific or relate to neurodegeneration generally, BGN connectivity Subjects: 32 patients with early PD, 19 healthy controls (HC) and 31 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Results: Voxel-wise comparisons demonstrated decreased connectivity within the basal ganglia of patients with PD, when compared to patients with AD and HC. No significant changes within the BGN were seen in AD vs HC. Discussion: These changes are likely to be representative of patho-physiological basal ganglia dysfunction and are not associated with generalised neurodegeneration seen in AD. Further studies are necessary to ascertain whether this method is sensitive enough to detect basal ganglia dysfunction in prodromal PD, and its utility as a potential diagnostic biomarker for premotor and early motor disease. Link to (open access) full text: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213158215000704?via%3Dihub

Related article: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2015.04.003