Session Information
Date: Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Session Title: Parkinson's disease: Neuroimaging and neurophysiology
Session Time: 12:00pm-1:30pm
Location: Exhibit Hall located in Hall B, Level 2
Objective: To explore whether cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients is associated with cortical thinning.
Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) affects 1% of those over 60. Beyond various motor symptoms, most patients develop cognitive impairment, and often dementia (PDD). Reliable imaging markers would facilitate the most appropriate and timely intervention aimed at slowing the progression to dementia. The development of neuroprotective and disease-modifying therapies in PD has been hampered by a lack of clinically useful markers.
Methods: One-hundred and seventeen PD patients (68 with normal cognition, PDN; 29 meeting criteria for mild cognitive impairment, PDMCI; and 20 with dementia, PDD) and 51 healthy controls completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Three-dimensional T1-weighted (spoiled gradient echo acquisition, TE/TR=2.8/6.6 ms, TI=400 ms, voxel size=0.98×0.98×1.0 mm3) images were acquired on a 3T GE scanner. Freesurfer was used to quantify cortical thickness. We used a general linear model with age, sex and UPDRS-III as covariates to assess whether cognitive decline was associated with cortical changes in PD.
Results: Relative to controls, patients with PDN exhibited no significant cortical thinning. Patients with mild cognitive impairment showed bilateral cortical thinning in the temporal lobes, and PDD exhibited marked atrophy in both the frontal and parietal cortical regions (corrected p<0.05). Relative to patients with normal cognitive status (PDN), patients with dementia (PDD) experienced significant bilateral cortical thinning in parietal regions. PDD patients also showed left frontal and parietal thinning relative to patients with mild cognitive impairment.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that cortical thickness measured by MRI may be a potential marker for cognitive decline in PD. Based on these findings, it would be pertinent to explore the role of cortical thickness as a predictive marker for conversion to dementia in PD.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
M.M. Almuqbel, T.R. Melzer, D.J. Myall, M.R. MacAskill, L. Livingston, K. Wood, T.L. Pitcher, R.J. Keenan, J.C. Dalrymple-Alford, T.J. Andrson. Cortical atrophy in cognitively impaired Parkinson’s disease patients [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2016; 31 (suppl 2). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/cortical-atrophy-in-cognitively-impaired-parkinsons-disease-patients/. Accessed July 13, 2025.« Back to 2016 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/cortical-atrophy-in-cognitively-impaired-parkinsons-disease-patients/