Enhanced functional connectivity between putamen and supplementary motor area in Parkinson's disease patients

PLoS One. 2013;8(3):e59717. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059717. Epub 2013 Mar 26.

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a surprisingly heterogeneous disorder with symptoms including resting tremor, bradykinesia and rigidity. PD has been associated with abnormal task related brain activation in sensory and motor regions as well as reward related network. Although corticostriatal skeletomotor circuit dysfunction is implicated in the neurobiology of Parkinson's disease, the functional connectivity within this circuit at the resting state is still unclear for PD. Here we utilized resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the functional connectivity of striatum and motor cortex in 19 patients with PD and 20 healthy controls. We found that the putamen, but not the caudate, exhibited enhanced connectivity with supplementary motor area (SMA), using either the putamen or the SMA as the "seed region". Enhanced SMA-amygdala functional connectivity was also found in the PD group, compared with normal controls. Our findings highlight the key role of hyper-connected putamen-SMC circuit in the pathophysiology of PD.

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Amygdala / pathology
  • Brain / pathology
  • Brain Mapping
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Contrast Media / pharmacology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Hypokinesia / pathology
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Motor Cortex / anatomy & histology*
  • Motor Cortex / pathology
  • Parkinson Disease / diagnosis
  • Parkinson Disease / pathology*
  • Putamen / anatomy & histology*
  • Putamen / pathology
  • Tremor

Substances

  • Contrast Media

Grants and funding

The authors have no support or funding to report.