Altered brain network centrality in depressed Parkinson's disease patients

Depression is a relatively common and serious nonmotor symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD), which reduces the quality of patients' life. Although disturbances in some related brain networks have been reported, the pathophysiology of depression in PD is still unclear. Here, we aim to investigate whole-brain functional connectivity patterns in depressed PD patients.

We recruited 17 PD patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder, 17 PD patients without depression, and 17 healthy control subjects. Resting-state functional MRI and eigenvector centrality mapping were used to identify functional connectivity alterations among these groups.

Results showed that depressed PD patients had decreased functional connectivity in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right superior temporal gyrus and increased functional connectivity in the right posterior cingulate cortex, compared to nondepressed patients. In addition, there was a significant negative correlation between functional connectivity and depression scores in the posterior cingulate cortex.

This study suggests that functional connectivity changes in certain nodes of brain networks might contribute to depression in patients with PD.