Objective: The aim of this study is to assess whether the impairment of executive functions is associated with the laterality of the affected nigro-striatal pathway according to DaT-SPECT.

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is caused by a progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal circuit. The striatum is interconnected by fronto-subcortical circuits with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is involved in the control of executive functions. It has been reported that early-PD patients exhibit weaker consolidation in a visuomotor procedural task compared to age-matched healthy subjects and that their speed when performing a task is strongly correlated with the right caudate nucleus 123I-ioflupane uptake (1).

Method: We selected 28 patients diagnosed with PD without dementia and assessed the representation of failures in different subtests of executive function in the three groups of laterality on DaT-SPECT: left-sided, right-sided and symmetrical.

Results: The group of patients with pathologic DaT-SPECT on the left side only had a lower number of fails in executive tests based on visuospatial tasks while the group of patients with pathologic DaT-SPECT on the right side only had a lower number of fails in executive tests based on verbal tasks.

Conclusion: Executive functions correlate with the laterality of nigroestriatal denervation in Parkinson’s disease. DaT-SPECT opens new perspectives for studying in vivo dopaminergic pathways and their association with executive functions in degenerative parkinsonisms.

References: 1. Nicastro N, Manuel AL, Garibotto V, Burkhard PR, Schnider A. Consolidation of a Learned Skill Correlates with Dopamine SPECT Uptake in Early Parkinson’s Disease. J Clin Neurol. 2018;14(4):505-512.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/executive-functions-correlate-with-dat-spect-laterality-in-parkinsons-disease/