Inter-hemispheric EEG coherence analysis in Parkinson's disease: assessing brain activity during emotion processing.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Clinical Neurology
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Parkinson's disease (PD) presents with motor deficits and also affects cognitive and emotional processing.
• Understanding the neural underpinnings of emotional dysfunction in PD is crucial for comprehensive patient care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine how emotion processing influences inter-hemispheric electroencephalography (EEG) coherence in individuals with Parkinson's disease.
• To compare EEG coherence patterns between PD patients and healthy controls during emotional stimuli presentation.

Main Methods:

• Recorded EEG from 20 PD patients and 30 healthy controls (HC) while presenting multimodal emotional stimuli.
• Computed inter-hemispheric coherence across seven electrode pairs in delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands.
• Assessed emotion recognition through subjective ratings and analyzed behavioral performance.

Main Results:

• PD patients demonstrated significantly lower inter-hemispheric coherence in theta, alpha, beta, and gamma bands compared to HC during emotion processing.
• No significant differences in delta band coherence were observed between groups.
• PD patients showed a greater deficit in recognizing negative emotions, though subjective ratings did not reflect this impairment.

Conclusions:

• Parkinson's disease is associated with impaired inter-hemispheric functional connectivity during emotion processing.
• Findings suggest a decline in cortical connectivity contributing to emotional disturbances in PD.
• EEG-based emotion response studies can reveal neurophysiological abnormalities in PD, aiding clinical practice.