Objective: To explore the characteristics of spontaneous brain activity in left- and right-onset Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients

Background: It is well-know that PD patients often present with unilateral motor symptoms. In addition, studies using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) have demonstrated more severe involvement of the basal ganglia structures contralateral to the motor symptom onset side. Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) estimates the brain blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal while the subjects are awaking and not performing any specific task. The amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) is a useful tool to reflect brain activity during the resting state. ALFF has not been used to investigate the influence of laterality in PD. The present study used ALFF to elucidate the characteristics of spontaneous brain activity in left- and right-onset PD patients.

Method: Twenty-five left-onset and 26 right-onset PD patients were included in the study, the two groups of patients had similar age and disease severity. Thirty-two healthy controls with comparable age and sex distribution were recruited. All the subjects underwent rs-fMRI examination. The fMRI data were processed using restplus (https://restfmri.net/forum/rest). The results were corrected by AlphaSim. The difference between the two PD groups and the healthy controls were analyzed by 2-sample t test. p<0.05 was viewed as statistically significant.

Results: Compared with the healthy controls, left-onset PD patients had decreased ALFF in the bilateral occipital lobes, the left temporal lobe, the left inferior frontal gyrus, and the right parietal lobe. In comparison with the healthy controls, right-onset PD patients had decreased ALFF in the left inferior frontal gyrus, anterior part of the right temporal gyrus, and the right parietal lobe. Compared with left-onset PD patients, right-onset PD patients had decreased ALFF in the left thalamus, the right putamen, and the right cingulate gyrus, as well as increased ALFF in the left occipital lobe.

Conclusion: This study showed significant decrease of ALFF in multiple cortical regions in both left- and right-onset PD patients compared with the healthy people. Furthermore, there were significant differences in brain activity in multiple cortical and subcortical structures.

References: This abstract has been submitted to the 6th Asian and Oceanian Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Congress, April 12-14, 2019 • Hangzhou 1. Hughes AJ, Daniel SE, Kilford L, et al. Accuracy of clinical diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease: a clinico-pathological study of 100 cases. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1992;55(3):181-4. 2. Ba F, Martin WR. Dopamine transporter imaging as a diagnostic tool for parkinsonism and related disorders in clinical practice. Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2015;21(2):87-94. 3. Heinrichs-Graham E, Santamaria PM, Gendelman HE, et al. The cortical signature of symptom laterality in Parkinson’s disease. Neuroimage Clin. 2017;14:433-40. 4. Zang YF, He Y, Zhu CZ, et al. Altered baseline brain activity in children with ADHD revealed by resting-state functional MRI. Brain Dev. 2007;29(2):83-91.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/characteristics-of-spontaneous-brain-activity-in-left-and-right-onset-parkinsons-disease-patients/