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 compare the corticocortical paired associative stimulation (PAS)-induced spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP)-like plasticity between Parkinson’s disease (PD) and healthy elder subjects.
Background: Patients with PD have been reported to bear dysfunction in the cerebello-dentato-thalamo-cortical (CDTC) circuit. Previous evidence showed that bidirectional STDP-like plasticity in primary motor cortex (M1) can be mediated by associative stimulation of the CDTC pathway and M1 in young adults. The feature of such plasticity has never been addressed in elder people and in pathological conditions.
Methods: Nine patients with PD (Hoehn and Yahr stage 2-3) and nine age-matched healthy subjects were studied. One hundred and twenty pairs of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the left M1 preceded by right lateral cerebellum (CB) TMS at an interstimulus interval of 2 ms (CB→M1 PAS2ms) or 6 ms (CB→M1 PAS6ms) were applied. M1 excitability was assessed by motor-evoked potential (MEP) amplitude, short-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI), intracortical facilitation (ICF) and cerebellar inhibition (CBI) in the first dorsal interosseous muscle of the right hand before and after CB→M1 PAS.
Results: Temporary MEP potentiation was found by the CB→M1 PAS2ms protocol. In contrast, CB→M1 PAS6ms resulted in a long MEP depression. These effects were only observed in the healthy elder subjects but not in the patients with PD. SICI, ICF and CBI did not show any significant change.
Conclusions: The current findings suggest that CB→M1 PAS-induced bidirectional STDP-like plasticity in M1 may be preserved in elders and significantly impaired in patients with PD. Findings also support the notion of functional perturbation within the CDTC circuit in the patients with PD.
This abstract has been presented in the 2016 Annual Meeting of Taiwan Neurological Society.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
M.K. Lu, C.M. Chen, J.R. Duann, C.H. Tsai. Impaired cerebellum to motor cortex associative plasticity in Parkinson’s disease [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2016; 31 (suppl 2). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/impaired-cerebellum-to-motor-cortex-associative-plasticity-in-parkinsons-disease/. Accessed June 14, 2025.« Back to 2016 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/impaired-cerebellum-to-motor-cortex-associative-plasticity-in-parkinsons-disease/