Objective: We evaluated self-similarity of electrocortical activity as expression of brain signal complexity in patients clinically affected by Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) and Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD) as compared to controls.

Background: Complexity is a characteristic of self-similar fractal phenomena, which have been described in biological processes. It has been hypothesized that a topographic increased level of neuronal organization can be evaluated by analyzing self-similarity property of site-specific electrocortical activity as expression of brain signal complexity. In untreated Parkinson’s disease subjects, an increased level of fronto-temporal neuronal organization has been observed. No data are available for patients clinically affected by suspected tauopathies with dementia and parkinsonism.

Method: We analyzed data of N=14 PSP, N=7 CBD and N=27 controls subjects group-matched by age who underwent standardized electroencephalography. A Welch’s periodogram was applied to site-specific electroencephalographic signal epochs. To investigate self-similarity of electrocortical activity, the power law exponent β was computed for each selected coordinate as minus the slope of power spectrum versus frequency in a Log-Log scale.

Results: PSP subjects presented significant overall lower β values among all sites of recordings as compared to controls. CBD patients presented instead significant lower β values in the posterior temporal-parietal-occipital regions bilaterally with respect to controls, while no significant differences were observed in the frontal regions.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest different patterns of topographic electrocortical organization in patients with PSP and CBD, maybe due to different subcortical-cortical functional networks involved in the two conditions.

References: [1] Mostile G, Nicoletti A, Dibilio V, Luca A, Pappalardo I, Giuliano L, Cicero CE, Sciacca G, Raciti L, Contrafatto D, Bruno E, Sofia V, Zappia M. Electroencephalographic lateralization, clinical correlates and pharmacological response in untreated Parkinson’s disease. Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2015; 21: 948-953. [2] Mostile G, Giuliano L, Dibilio V, Luca A, Cicero CE, Sofia V, Nicoletti A, Zappia M. Complexity of electrocortical activity as potential biomarker in untreated Parkinson’s disease. J Neural Transm (Vienna). 2019; 126: 167-172.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/exploratory-analysis-of-electrocortical-signal-complexity-in-patients-with-progressive-supranuclear-palsy-and-corticobasal-degeneration/