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Disrupted Structural and Metabolic Brain Networks with Structural - Metabolic Decoupling in Parkinson's Disease: An
Mengjiao Wang1, Yifeng Yang2, Peng Fu1
1Department of Nuclear Medicine, 1st Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China (M.W., P.F., W.H., Z.Z., Y.J., Z.L., Y.S., H.Z., L.L., L.W., C.Z.).
Academic Radiology
|April 22, 2026
Summary
Parkinson's disease (PD) disrupts brain networks, showing reduced metabolic integration and structural-metabolic connectivity (SC-MC) decoupling, particularly in orbitofrontal-basal ganglia circuits. This SC-MC decoupling offers a novel biomarker for PD network disruption.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Medical Imaging
- Systems Biology
Background:
- Parkinson's disease (PD) is increasingly studied using brain network analysis.
- The interplay between structural connectivity (SC) and metabolic connectivity (MC) in PD remains poorly understood.
- Integrated PET/MRI offers a unique approach to investigate these network relationships.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the decoupling between structural and metabolic brain networks in Parkinson's disease (PD).
- To provide imaging evidence elucidating the mechanisms of network disruption in PD.
- To assess the potential of structural-metabolic connectivity (SC-MC) as a biomarker.
Main Methods:
- Collected diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and 18F-FDG PET data from 43 PD patients and 25 healthy controls (HC).
- Generated structural connectivity (SC) and metabolic connectivity (MC) networks.
- Applied graph-theoretical methods and Yeo 7-network parcellation to compare SC-MC coupling at regional and module levels.
Main Results:
- PD patients exhibited retained small-world properties in both SC and MC networks.
- Metabolic networks in PD showed reduced global integration (longer characteristic path length, lower global efficiency).
- Significant SC-MC decoupling was observed in specific regions (IFGorb, MFGorb, pallidum) and networks (visual, ventral attention, frontoparietal control) in PD patients.
Conclusions:
- Parkinson's disease is characterized by reduced metabolic network integration and regional SC-MC decoupling.
- The orbitofrontal-basal ganglia circuits are most prominently affected.
- SC-MC coupling analysis provides complementary information to SC-functional connectivity (FC) and shows promise as a multimodal, network-level biomarker for PD.
Keywords:
(18)F-FDG PET/MRIDiffusion tensor imagingGraph theoryParkinson’s diseaseStructural-metabolic couplingMore Related Videos
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