Objective: This study aimed at investigating the neural and kinematic correlates of bradykinesia during hand-tapping in people with Parkinson’s disease (pwPD) relative to healthy controls.

Background: Bradykinesia is defined as a “complex” of motor alterations including decreased movement amplitude and/or speed and tendency to reduce them with movement repetition (sequence effect).

Method: Twenty-five pwPD and 25 age- and sex-matched healthy controls underwent brain functional MRI (fMRI) during a hand-tapping task: subjects alternatively opened and closed their right hand as fast and wide as possible. Hand-tapping kinematic parameters were objectively measured during the fMRI task using an optical fibre glove.

Results: During the fMRI task, pwPD showed reduced hand-tapping amplitude (hypokinesia) and a greater sequence effect. PwPD relative to healthy controls showed a reduced activity of frontoparietal areas, middle cingulum/supplementary motor area (SMA), parahippocampus, pallidum/thalamus, and motor cerebellar areas. Moreover, pwPD showed an increased activity of brain cognitive areas such as superior temporal gyrus, posterior cingulum, and cerebellum crus I. The decreased activity of cerebellum IV-V-VI, vermis IV-V, inferior frontal gyrus, and cingulum/SMA correlated with hypokinesia and with the sequence effect.

Conclusion: . PwPD showed reduced hand movement amplitude and sequence effect with movement repetition relative to healthy controls. Interestingly, these manifestations correlated with altered brain activity: a reduced activity of areas involved in motor planning and timing correlated both with hypokinesia and with the sequence effect in pwPD. This study has the major strength of collecting objective motor parameters and brain activity simultaneously, providing a unique opportunity to investigate the neural correlates of the “bradykinesia complex”.

Abstract previously presented at:

Società Italiana di Neurologia (SIN) Congress (Oct 2023)

Associazione Italiana Fisioterapia (AIFI) Scientific National Congress (Nov 2023)

Winter Seminar on Dementia and Neurodegenerative Disorders SINdem4Juniors (Feb 2024)

Funding: Italian Ministry of Health grant GR-2018-12366005.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/a-kinematic-and-fmri-study-of-the-neural-correlates-of-bradykinesia-in-parkinsons-disease/