Objective: To explore the different resting-state functional connectivity of subthalamic nucleus (STN) in different phenotypes of Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: The STN is one of the most important nuclei in the basal ganglia thalamocortical circuit in PD, and high frequency stimulation of the STN by DBS will improve the major motor symptoms of parkinsonism in humans, but the mechanism is still unclear and controversial. All the previous studies focus on functional connectivity of the PD patients especially for the tremor-dominant subtype. However, less was known about the functional connectivity of STN with other brain regions in other phenotypes of PD patients.

Methods: Total 31 PD patients and 22 gender-and age-matched healthy controls (HC) were enrolled in our study. PD patients were further divided into 12 tremor-dominant (TD) group and 19 posture instability gait difficulty (PIGD) group. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data was obtained from each subject. The bilateral STN was chosen as the region of interest to calculate the functional connectivity in a voxel-wise manner. ANOVA and post hoc analyses were performed to examine the difference in STN functional connectivity among TD, PIGD and HC groups. Correlation analysis between the tremor/PIGD scores and STN functional connectivity was carried out in all PD patients.

Results: Compared with the controls and PIGD patients, the TD patients had higher functional connectivity between the bilateral STN and the left cerebellar lobe. However, the PIGD patients showed higher functional connectivity between the bilateral STN and the bilateral middle occipital lobes when compared to the HC and TD groups. There was positive correlation between the STN functional connectivity with bilateral cerebellar lobes and the tremor score in all PD patients. And the STN functional connectivity with bilateral occipital lobes showed positive correlation with the PIGD score.

Conclusions: PD subtypes have distinguished STN functional connectivity, which may explain different DBS response in PD phenotypes. Increased coupling between the STN and cerebellum may underlie neural substrate of PD tremor while impaired coupling between the STN and putamen may be related with gait and posture disturbance of PD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/resting-state-functional-connectivity-of-subthalamic-nucleus-in-different-phenotypes-of-parkinsons-disease/