Objective: To evaluate the effect of lateralization on various cortico-striatal circuits through resting state functional MRI.

Background: Striatum is unevenly impaired bilaterally in Parkinson’s disease. Because striatum plays a key role in cortico-striatal circuits, we assume that lateralization affects cortico-striatal functional connectivity in Parkinson’s disease.

Method: Thirty Parkinson’s disease patients with left onset (LPD), 27 Parkinson’s disease patients with right onset (RPD), and 32 normal controls with satisfactory data were recruited. Their demographic, clinical, and neuropsychological information was collected. Resting-state functional MRI was performed, and functional connectivity changes of 7 subdivisions of striatum were explored in the two Parkinson’s disease groups. In addition, the associations between altered functional connectivity and various clinical and neuropsychological characteristics were analyzed by Spearman’s correlation.

Results: Directly comparing the LPD and RPD patients demonstrated that the LPD patients had lower FC between the left dorsal rostral putamen and the left orbitofrontal cortex than the RPD patients. In addition, the LPD patients showed aberrant functional connectivity involving several striatal subdivisions in the right hemisphere. The right dorsal caudate, ventral rostral putamen and superior ventral striatum had decreased functional connectivity with the cerebellum, parietal and occipital lobes relative to the normal control group. The comparison between RPD patients and the controls did not obtain significant difference in functional connectivity. The changed functional connectivity was associated with motor symptom severity, depression, and anxiety.

Conclusion: Our findings provide new insights into the distinct characteristics of cortico-striatal circuits in LPD and RPD patients, which might be involved in the underlying mechanisms of motor, depressive and anxious symptoms.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/motor-symptom-lateralization-influences-cortico-striatal-functional-connectivity-in-parkinsons-disease/