Objective: To explore a possible relation between the changes of cortical thickness and cognitive deficits in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: Cognitive impariment usually appeared before clinical diagnosis of PD and eventually progress to Parkinson’s disease dementia.

Methods: Sixty-two patients with PD were enrolled in the department of neurology of Guangdong General Hospital from 2015-08 to 2017-08 and they were divided into PD patients with cognitive impairment (MoCA≤26,PD-CI) and PD patients with normal cognition (MoCA>26,PD-NC) according to MoCA scores. Twenty-six age and sex-matched healthy controls were also included in the study. General clinical materials, MRIs and neuropsychological evaluation of all subjects were collected. We used Freesurfer software and voxel-based morphometry to investigate the pattern of cortical atrophy.

Results: Compared to PD-NC patients, cortical atrophies in PD-CI patients were found in the precuneus, superior temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, rostral anterior cingulate cortex, pars opercularis of left cerebral and supramarginal gyrus of right cerebral, mainly in the left precuneus, left rostral anterior cingulate gyrus and left inferior temporal gyrus(P<0.05). And we found significant positive correlations between MCT of left precuneus and scores of visuospatial and executive functiom (r=0.27，P=0.034), MCT of left rostral anterior cingulate gyrus and scores of abstract（r=0.31, P=0.015), and MCT of left superior temporal gyrus and abstract (r=0.25，P=0.048) or delay recall (r=0.26，P=0.046).

Conclusions: MCT of many brain regions in patients with PD-CI significantly decreased and MCT of the ROIs had a positive and significant relationship with cognitive function, which provides imaging markers in the early diagnosis of PD-CI.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/an-analysis-of-cortical-thickness-in-early-parkinsons-disease-patients-with-cognitive-impairment/