Objective: The motor dysfunctions always affect hemi-body first in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the interhemispheric relationships in patients with only unilateral motor impairment were barely known to date. We aimed to investigate the interhemispheric functions using resting-state functional Magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) for further understanding the pathogenesis of PD.
Methods: Forty-three unilateral-symptomatic PD patients (UPD, Hoehn-Yahr staging scale, H-Y: 1-1.5), and 54 age-, gender-, education-matched normal controls (NC) were recruited. All subjects underwent MRI scanning and clinical evaluations. The interhemispheric coordination (Voxel-Mirrored Homotopic Connectivity, VMHC) and hemispheric dominance pattern (laterality index of eigenvector centrality mapping, LI-ECM) were calculated. Afterwards, correlation analyses and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis were employed.
Results: Compared with NC, UPD group showed significantly decreased VMHC in bilateral sensorimotor regions which was negatively correlated with the motor score. Furthermore, at the cut-off homotopic connectivity of 0.604, statistically significant ability of VMHC to discriminate UPD from NC with area under ROC curve (AUC) = 0.759, p < 0.001; specificity = 74.4%; sensitivity = 68.5% was observed. No difference was detected in UPD patients as for ECM and LI-ECM.
Conclusions: The disrupted interhemispheric coordination in bilateral sensorimotor regions may have significant implications for elucidating the mechanisms underlying the hemiparkinsonism and enabling the uncovering of complex mechanisms of PD.
Keywords: Hemiparkinsonism; LI-ECM.; Parkinson’s disease; RS-fMRI; VMHC.
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