Impaired Adaptive Motor Learning Is Correlated With Cerebellar Hemispheric Gray Matter Atrophy in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Patients: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study

Kyota Bando; Takeru Honda; Kinya Ishikawa; Yuji Takahashi; Hidehiro Mizusawa; Takashi Hanakawa

doi:10.3389/fneur.2019.01183

Impaired Adaptive Motor Learning Is Correlated With Cerebellar Hemispheric Gray Matter Atrophy in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Patients: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study

Front Neurol. 2019 Nov 14:10:1183. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2019.01183. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Kyota Bando^{1

2

3}, Takeru Honda⁴, Kinya Ishikawa⁵, Yuji Takahashi³, Hidehiro Mizusawa³, Takashi Hanakawa^{1

2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Advanced Neuroimaging, Integrative Brain Imaging Center, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Tokyo, Japan.
² Department of NCNP Brain Physiology and Pathology, Graduate School, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan.
³ National Center Hospital, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Japan.
⁴ Motor Disorders Project, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Tokyo, Japan.
⁵ Department of Neurology and Neurological Science, Graduate School, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan.
⁶ Department of Integrated Neuroanatomy and Neuroimaging, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the degree to which recently proposed parameters measured via a prism adaptation task are correlated with changes in cerebellar structure, specifically gray matter volume (GMV), in patients with spinocerebellar degeneration (SCD). Methods: We performed whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis on 3-dimensional T1-weighted images obtained from 23 patients with SCD [Spinocerebellar ataxia type 6 (SCA6), 31 (SCA31), 3/Machado-Joseph disease (SCA3/MJD), and sporadic cortical cerebellar atrophy (CCA)] and 21 sex- and age-matched healthy controls (HC group). We quantified a composite index representing adaptive motor learning abilities in a hand-reaching task with prism adaptation. After controlling for age, sex, and total intracranial volume, we analyzed group-wise differences in GMV and regional GMV correlations with the adaptive learning index. Results: Compared with the HC group, the SCD group showed reduced adaptive learning abilities and smaller GMV widely in the lobules IV-VIII in the bilateral cerebellar hemispheres. In the SCD group, the adaptive learning index was correlated with cerebellar hemispheric atrophy in the right lobule VI, the left Crus I. Additionally, GMV of the left supramarginal gyrus showed a correlation with the adaptive learning index in the SCD group, while the supramarginal region did not accompany reduction of GMV. Conclusions: This study indicated that a composite index derived from a prism adaptation task was correlated with GMV of the lateral cerebellum and the supramarginal gyrus in patients with SCD. This study should contribute to the development of objective biomarkers for disease severity and progression in SCD.

Keywords: MRI; motor learning; prism adaptation; spinocerebellar ataxia; spinocerebellar degeneration; volumetric MRI; voxel-based morphometry.