Category: Parkinson's Disease: Neuroimaging
Objective: Our study aimed to analyze the alterations in brain FC in subjects with tremor-dominant PD compared to ET subjects.
Background: While both tremor-dominant Parkinson’s disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET) are movement disorders characterized by tremors, their underlying neural mechanisms remain distinct. Understanding the unique patterns of functional connectivity (FC) alterations in these disorders can provide valuable insights into their pathophysiology and aid in targeted treatment strategies.
Method: 43 tremor-dominant PD subjects and 14 ET subjects were enrolled in this study. Resting-state fMRI was performed using a 3T Siemens scanner with 64 channels head and neck coil. Inter-subject hemisphere dominance was uniformed by flipping the MRI for the eligible subjects. ROI-to-ROI analysis of the whole brain was performed using Conn toolbox. Group-based analysis was then performed between the two groups. A cluster threshold p-value set of <0.05 was used, with results corrected for multiple comparisons using threshold p< 0.05. Age, gender, and disease severity were used as confounding variables.
Results: The PD group demonstrated increased FC in 4 clusters compared to the ET group. Increased FC was observed within and between dorsal attention and visual lateral networks in the first cluster. Increased FC was demonstrated within the Salience network between the anterior insula, rostral prefrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex. Finally, increased FC was observed within and between salience and language networks in the third and fourth clusters. Figures represent the anatomic location and the FC of the aforementioned networks.
Conclusion: Altered FC was observed within and between dorsal attention, salience, and visual networks while comparing PD subjects to ET patients.
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To cite this abstract in AMA style:
O. Shoraka, S. Naghizadeh Kashani, M. Syed, K. Shivok, T. Liang, R. Sergott, I. Fayed, C. Matias, C. Wu, A. Sharan, M. Alizadeh. Comparative Study of Whole-Brain Functional Connectivity Patterns in Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremor: A Resting-State fMRI Study [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2024; 39 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/comparative-study-of-whole-brain-functional-connectivity-patterns-in-parkinsons-disease-and-essential-tremor-a-resting-state-fmri-study/. Accessed June 15, 2025.« Back to 2024 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/comparative-study-of-whole-brain-functional-connectivity-patterns-in-parkinsons-disease-and-essential-tremor-a-resting-state-fmri-study/