Objective: We aimed to investigate differences in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain responses across hyperkinetic movement disorders (HMDs) during a bilateral finger-tapping task.We aimed to investigate differences in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain responses across hyperkinetic movement disorders (HMDs) during a bilateral finger-tapping task.

Background: HMDs are clinically characterized by excessive, abnormal, and involuntary movements. Since 1) the pathophysiology for many HMDs remains largely unclear, 2) the clinical presentation of HMDs is often very similar, and 3) the disorders may co-occur, correct classification (i.e., phenotyping) of HMD patients is presently very difficult, which subsequently complicates patient treatment [1], [2]. Neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI provide a promising and versatile method to investigate brain function to better understand HMDs. Traditionally, fMRI data is analyzed by averaging activation responses over a region. Multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) allows accounting for any relevant information in response patterns within regions.

Method: We investigated fMRI based brain responses during a bilateral finger-tapping task across 12 essential tremor patients, 14 cortical myoclonus patients, and 25 healthy controls. Participants performed a 5-minute finger-tapping task in a 3T MR scanner. Images were acquired using a multi-echo fMRI protocol (TE=12, 36.1, 60.2ms; MB=4; TR=1.101s; voxels=3.5mm iso) and denoised using a multi-echo independent component analysis (ME-ICA) pipeline [3]. Regional brain response patterns were analyzed using searchlight-based multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) [4].

Results: Group comparisons between healthy controls and essential tremor patients showed pattern differences in a motor control network, which included the precentral and postcentral gyri, posterior insula, and cerebellum (Pfdr < 0.05). Differences between healthy controls and myoclonus patients were mainly found in the precuneus, angular gyrus, and frontal eye fields (Pfdr < 0.05). We did not find any significant differences when directly comparing essential tremor and cortical myoclonus patients.

Conclusion: Regional fMRI based brain patterns differentiate essential tremor and cortical myoclonus patients from controls. However, differentiating between these patient groups still remains difficult using the present methods.

References: [1] S. G. Reich, “Pearls: hyperkinetic movement disorders.,” Semin. Neurol., vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 15–22, Feb. 2010.
[2] W. F. Abdo, B. P. C. van de Warrenburg, D. J. Burn, N. P. Quinn, and B. R. Bloem, “The clinical approach to movement disorders,” Nat. Rev. Neurol., vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 29–37, Jan. 2010.
[3] E. DuPre et al., “TE-dependent analysis of multi-echo fMRI with tedana,” J. Open Source Softw., vol. 6, no. 66, p. 3669, 2021.
[4] M. Kumar et al., “BrainIAK: The Brain Imaging Analysis Kit,” Aperture Neuro, vol. 1, no. 4, p. 19, Dec. 2020.

« Back to 2022 International Congress

MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/using-fmri-based-multivariate-pattern-analysis-to-differentiate-between-hyperkinetic-movement-disorders/