Emotion processing in Parkinson’s disease: a blood oxygenation level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder caused by loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta. Tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia are the major symptoms of the disease. These motor impairments are often accompanied by affective and emotional dysfunctions which have been largely studied over the last decade. The aim of this study was to investigate emotional processing organization in the brain of patients with Parkinson’s disease and to explore whether there are differences between recognition of different types of emotions in Parkinson’s disease. We examined 18 patients with Parkinson’s disease (8 men, 10 women) with no history of neurological or psychiatric comorbidities. All these patients underwent identical brain blood oxygenation level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging for emotion evaluation. Blood oxygenation level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging results revealed that the occipito-temporal cortices, insula, orbitofrontal cortex, basal ganglia, and parietal cortex which are involved in emotion processing, were activated during the functional control. Additionally, positive emotions activate larger volumes of the same anatomical entities than neutral and negative emotions. Results also revealed that Parkinson’s disease associated with emotional disorders are increasingly recognized as disabling as classic motor symptoms. These findings help clinical physicians to recognize the emotional dysfunction of patients with Parkinson’s disease.

An Integrative Nomogram for Identifying Early-Stage Parkinson's Disease Using Non-motor Symptoms and White Matter-Based Radiomics Biomarkers From Whole-Brain MRI

“…In recent years, progress has been achieved in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology in the field of neuroimaging (Agosta et al, 2017), such as structural MRI (Tzarouchi et al, 2010), diffusion tensor imaging (Schwarz et al, 2013), and blood oxygen level-dependent functional MRI (Benzagmout et al, 2019). These different techniques represent effective methods for non-invasively studying changes in brain morphology and function associated with PD.…”