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Precuneus Dysfunction in Parkinson's Disease With Mild Cognitive Impairment
Xiuqin Jia1,2, Ying Li3, Kuncheng Li3,4
1State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
|January 29, 2019
Summary
Parkinson's disease patients with mild cognitive impairment show reduced blood flow and connectivity in the precuneus, impacting memory. This posterior parietal memory network dysfunction is key to their cognitive deficits.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Neurology
- Radiology
Background:
- Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is common in Parkinson's disease (PD).
- Neurovascular changes and neurodegeneration interact in PD.
- Cerebral blood flow (CBF) and functional connectivity (FC) deficits in PD with MCI (PD-MCI) are not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate neurovascular perfusion and FC alterations in PD-MCI versus PD with normal cognition (PD-NC) and healthy controls (HCs).
- To examine whole-brain FC changes linked to abnormal perfusion regions in PD-MCI.
Main Methods:
- Arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI to measure relative CBF (rCBF).
- Resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) for FC analysis.
- Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) for gray matter changes.
- Neuropsychological testing was performed on 54 PD patients (27 PD-NC, 27 PD-MCI) and 25 HCs.
Main Results:
- Left caudate atrophy observed in PD patients compared to HCs.
- PD-MCI patients showed specific hypoperfusion in the precuneus (PCu) within the parietal memory network (PMN) compared to PD-NC and HCs.
- Decreased PCu-FC in the right striatum was found in PD-MCI.
- PCu perfusion and right striatum PCu-FC positively correlated with memory performance in PD-MCI.
Conclusions:
- Posterior parietal memory network (PMN) dysfunction contributes to memory deficits in PD-MCI.
- Neurovascular alterations in the precuneus are specifically associated with cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease.