Assessment of cortical degeneration in patients with Parkinson's disease by voxel‐based morphometry, cortical folding, and cortical thickness

Abstract

Noninvasive brain imaging methods provide useful information on cerebral involution and degenerative processes. Here we assessed cortical degeneration in 20 nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 20 healthy controls using three quantitative neuroanatomical approaches: voxel-based morphometry (VBM), cortical folding (BrainVisa), and cortical thickness (FreeSurfer). We examined the relationship between global and regional gray matter (GM) volumes, sulcal indices, and thickness measures derived from the previous methods as well as their association with cognitive performance, age, severity of motor symptoms, and disease stage. VBM analyses showed GM volume reductions in the left temporal gyrus in patients compared with controls. Cortical folding measures revealed significant decreases in the left frontal and right collateral sulci in patients. Finally, analysis of cortical thickness showed widespread cortical thinning in right lateral occipital, parietal and left temporal, frontal, and premotor regions. We found that, in patients, all global anatomical measures correlated with age, while GM volume and cortical thickness significantly correlated with disease stage. In controls, a significant association was found between global GM volume and cortical folding with age. Overall these results suggest that the three different methods provide complementary and related information on neurodegenerative changes occurring in PD, however, surface-based measures of cortical folding and especially cortical thickness seem to be more sensitive than VBM to identify regional GM changes associated to PD.

Structural alteration of motor and sensory cortices in Parkinson’s disease using magnetic resonance imaging: Automatic brain segmentation

“…Supporting the present finding, previous studies found no significant difference in volume of white matter of motor cortex (Brenneis et al, 2003;Pereira et al, 2012).…”

“…The present finding agrees with studies that found thinning in right precentral area (Pereira et al, 2012;Kim et al, 2014). The present finding disagreed with Koshimori et al (2015), who found significant reduction in cortical thickness in the left precentral gyrus for PD patients instead of the right cortex (Koshimori et al, 2015).…”

“…Therefore, the result of reduced thickness of primary motor cortex in the current study might be due to the effect of disease on cortical circuitry in PD. Pereira et al (2012) and Zarei et al (2013) mentioned that the neurodegenerative process in PD is reflected by cortical folding and especially cortical thickness measurements (Pereira et al, 2012;Zarei et al, 2013). Although such measurements are presumed to detect changes in the cortical GM layer of PD patients, pathological postmortem confirmation of these changes is needed.…”

Subcortical Atrophy Is Associated with Cognitive Impairment in Mild Parkinson Disease: A Combined Investigation of Volumetric Changes, Cortical Thickness, and Vertex-Based Shape Analysis

“…19 In addition, cortical thinning in PD represents a relatively new area of research, and it has been reported to be more sensitive than voxel-based morphometry. 20 Recent studies have shown that cortical thinning occurs in PD without dementia. 21 A longitudinal study also reported that patients with early PD presented with a more aggressive rate of cortical thinning in the frontotemporal regions compared with healthy controls.…”

Structural Brain Sex Differences in Parkinson’s Disease: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study

“…The results were inconsistent with other studies that have investigated GM using VBM. The inconsistency in the current study might be caused by the increase in the disease duration and the number of subjects included [69][70][71][72].…”