Structural and functional brain abnormalities in idiopathic cervical dystonia: A multimodal meta-analysis

Neuroimaging studies have identified both brain structural and functional abnormalities in patients with idiopathic cervical dystonia (iCD), but often yield diverse results. We aim to find the specific and common neurostructural/functional abnormalities in iCD by conducting separate and multimodal meta-analyses across structural and functional neuroimaging studies.

A systematic literature search was conducted to identify relevant publications. Separate meta-analysis for whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies and for functional imaging studies, and a multimodal meta-analysis across VBM and functional studies in iCD were conducted using anisotropic effect size-based signed differential mapping.

We included twenty-seven studies, including nine structural datasets comprising 152 iCD patients and 188 healthy controls, and seventeen functional datasets describing 352 iCD patients and 296 healthy controls. The multimodal analysis showed overlap between anatomic and functional changes in bilateral precentral and postcentral gyri, bilateral paracentral lobules, right supplementary motor area, bilateral median cingulate/paracingulate gyri, right caudate nucleus and thalamus, right cerebellum and lingual gyrus. We also found gray matter alterations alone in bilateral dorsolateral superior frontal gyri, left middle temporal gyrus, right inferior parietal gyrus, and left cerebellum; and altered functional activity alone in right fusiform gyrus, bilateral precuneus.

The current meta-analyses revealed significant conjoint and dissociated brain structural and functional abnormalities in iCD, and emphasized the involvement of cortico-thalamo-basal ganglia circuit and cerebellum.