Distinguishing progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) from multiple system atrophy (MSA) in the early clinical stages is challenging; few sensitive and specific biomarkers are available for their differential diagnosis. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) is used to study the fluctuations in blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signals at rest, which provides evidence for aberrant brain functional networks in neurodegenerative diseases. We aimed to examine whether rs-fMRI data could differentiate between PSP and MSA via a multiscale entropy (MSE) analysis of BOLD signals, which estimates the complexity of temporal fluctuations in brain activity. We recruited 14 and 18 patients with PSP and MSA, respectively, who underwent neuropsychological tests and rs-fMRI. PSP patients demonstrated greater cognitive function impairments, particularly in the frontal executive function. The bilateral prefrontal cortex revealed lower entropy BOLD signal values in multiple time scales for PSP, compared to the values observed in MSA patients; however, the functional connectivity of the representative brain networks was comparable between the diseases. The reduced complexity of BOLD signals in the prefrontal cortex was associated with frontal dysfunction. Thus, an MSE analysis of rs-fMRI could differentiate between PSP and MSA, and the reduced complexity of BOLD signals could be associated with cognitive impairment.
Keywords: connectivity; frontal executive function; multiscale entropy; multisystem; neural network; progressive supranuclear palsy; resting-state functional MRI; rs-fMRI.