Research output per year
Research output per year
Konrad Szewczyk-Krolikowski, Ricarda A L Menke, Michal Rolinski, Eugene Duff, Gholamreza Salimi-Khorshidi, Nicola Filippini, Giovanna Zamboni, Michele T M Hu, Clare E Mackay
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review
OBJECTIVE: To examine functional connectivity within the basal ganglia network (BGN) in a group of cognitively normal patients with early Parkinson disease (PD) on and off medication compared to age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HC), and to validate the findings in a separate cohort of participants with PD.
METHODS: Participants were scanned with resting-state fMRI (RS-fMRI) at 3T field strength. Resting-state networks were isolated using independent component analysis. A BGN template was derived from 80 elderly HC participants. BGN maps were compared between 19 patients with PD on and off medication in the discovery group and 19 age- and sex-matched controls to identify a threshold for optimal group separation. The threshold was applied to 13 patients with PD (including 5 drug-naive) in the validation group to establish reproducibility of findings.
RESULTS: Participants with PD showed reduced functional connectivity with the BGN in a wide range of areas. Administration of medication significantly improved connectivity. Average BGN connectivity differentiated participants with PD from controls with 100% sensitivity and 89.5% specificity. The connectivity threshold was tested on the validation cohort and achieved 85% accuracy.
CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate that resting functional connectivity, measured with MRI using an observer-independent method, is reproducibly reduced in the BGN in cognitively intact patients with PD, and increases upon administration of dopaminergic medication. Our results hold promise for RS-fMRI connectivity as a biomarker in early PD.
CLASSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE: This study provides Class III evidence that average connectivity in the BGN as measured by RS-fMRI distinguishes patients with PD from age- and sex-matched controls.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 208-214 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Neurology |
Volume | 83 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 11 Jun 2014 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 15 Jul 2014 |
Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate (Academic Journal)