Objective: To evaluate the cortical thickness alterations in cognitively impaired patients with PD (PD-CI) in a comparative study with cognitively normal patients with PD (PD-CN) and cognitively normal healthy subjects (HC).

Background: 20-40% of PD patients get affected by cognitive deficits with overall 83% of patients developing dementia within 20 years of diagnosis ^{(1, 2)}. Cortical thickness (CT), measuring shortest distance between brain surface and inner edge of cortical gray matter, may directly project the cortical alterations and hence, may be a promising tool to investigate morphological brain changes [2].

Method: We recruited 30 HC (56.53±8.42 years), 30 PD-CN (58.8±6.07 years) and 30 PD-CI (60.3±6.43 years) subjects for the study. Cognitive categorization of subjects followed MoCA global cognitive screening test. MR scans were performed Three dimensional T1 weighted image was acquired using a 32 channel head coil on a 3T MR scanner (Achieva 3.0T TX). Computational Anatomy Toolbox (CAT 12) was used for cortical thickness based surface analysis. One way ANOVA with ‘age’ correction was utilized to estimate intergroup differences in CT. Multiple linear regression with education (duration) and age as covariates were used to establish correlation between CT and MoCA score in PD.

Results: The global cognitive functioning was significantly affected in PD-CI with reduced MoCA score and widespread temporal, parietal, occipital and frontal cortical thinning in comparison to HC and PD-CN with p<0.05, Holm-Bonferroni correction and p<0.05, FDR correction respectively for whole brain. No significant difference was observed between HC and PD-CN groups. CT and MoCA score was significantly correlated in the PD group.

Conclusion: Pronounced temporal, frontal, and parietal cortical thinning in cognitively impaired patients with PD corresponds to Lewy body pathology and may be a potential MR imaging tool differentiating cognitive impairment in PD. CT may be promising in evaluating cognition linked pathology in PD.

References: (1) Hou J-G G & Lai E C. Non-motor Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease. Int. J. Gerontol. 2007, 1: 53–64. (2) Zhang L, Wang M, Sterling NW, Lee EY, Eslinger PJ, Wagner D, Du G, Lewis MM, Truong Y, Bowman FD, Huang X. Cortical Thinning and Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson’s Disease without Dementia. IEEE/ACM Trans Comput Biol Bioinform. 2018, 15:570-580. (3) Farokhian F, Beheshti I, Sone D, Matsuda H. Comparing CAT12 and VBM8 for Detecting Brain Morphological Abnormalities in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Front Neurol. 2017, 8:428. (4) Braak H, Del Tredici K, Rüb U, de Vos RA, Jansen Steur EN, Braak E. Staging of brain pathology related to sporadic Parkinson’s disease. Neurobiol Aging. 2003, 24:197-211. (5) Zarei M, Ibarretxe-Bilbao N, Compta Y, Hough M, Junque C, Bargallo N, et al. Cortical thinning is associated with disease stages and dementia in Parkinson’s disease. J Neurol Neurosurg &amp; Psychiatry [Internet]. 2013, 84:875 LP – 882.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/regional-cortical-thickness-alterations-in-pd-patients-with-cognitive-impairment/