Somatic symptoms disorders in Parkinson's disease are related to default mode and salience network dysfunction

Somatic Symptoms Disorder (SSD) has been shown to have a clinically very high prevalence in Parkinson's Disease (PD) with frequencies ranging from 7.0% to 66.7%, higher than in the general population (10%- 25%). SSD has been associated with dysfunction in Default Mode and Salience network.

With the present study we aim to verify by means of resting state functional MRI whether possible specific abnormalities in the activation and functional connectivity of the default mode network (DMN) and salience network in cognitively intact PD patients may be more prominent in PD patients with somatic symptoms (SSD-PD) as compared with patients without SSD (PD).

Eighteen SSD-PD patients (61% male), 18 PD patients (83% male) and 22 healthy age-matched subjects (59% male) were enrolled in the study and underwent resting state functional MRI.

fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) showed reduced activity in bilateral lateral parietal cortex and in left anterior insula in both SSD-PD and PD compared to control group. Functional connectivity (FC) values in the DMN areas and between DMN and salience network areas were found to be lower in SSD-PD than in control group and PD. No significant correlation was found between fMRI results and demographic and clinical variables, excluding the effect of possible confounders on fMRI results. The present study, showing reduced activity in bilateral parietal areas and in the left anterior insula as compared to healthy controls, suggests a dysfunction of the DMN and salience network in PD, either with or without SSD. The FC reduction within DMN areas and between DMN and salience network areas in SSD-PD patients suggests a role of dysfunctional connectivity in the resting state network of patients with SSD.