The Relationship between Side of Onset and Cerebral Regional Homogeneity in Parkinson’s Disease: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Abstract

Objective. Motor symptoms are usually asymmetric in Parkinson’s disease (PD), and asymmetry in PD may involve widespread brain areas. We sought to evaluate the effect of asymmetry on the whole brain spontaneous activity using the measure regional homogeneity (ReHo) through resting-state functional MRI. Methods. We recruited 30 PD patients with left onset (LPD), 27 with right side (RPD), and 32 controls with satisfactory data. Their demographic, clinical, and neuropsychological information were obtained. Resting-state functional MRI was performed, and ReHo was used to determine the brain activity. ANCOVA was utilized to analyze between-group differences in ReHo and the associations between abnormal ReHo, and various clinical and neuropsychological variables were explored by Spearman’s correlation. Results. LPD patients had higher ReHo in the right temporal pole than the controls. RPD patients had increased ReHo in the right temporal pole and decreased ReHo in the primary motor cortex and premotor area, compared with the controls. Directly comparing LPD and RPD patients did not show a significant difference in ReHo. ReHo of the right temporal pole was significantly correlated with depression and anxiety in RPD patients. Conclusions. Both LPD and RPD have increased brain activity synchronization in the right temporal pole, and only RPD has decreased brain activity synchronization in the right frontal motor areas. The changed brain activity in the right temporal pole may play a compensatory role for depression and anxiety in PD, and the altered cerebral function in the right frontal motor area in RPD may represent the reorganization of the motor system in RPD.

Alterations of Regional Homogeneity in Parkinson’s Disease: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) Study

“…Dopamine insufficiency in the nigrostriatal pathway may cause decreased ReHo values in the motor cortex [31]. Decreased ReHo in this region of Parkinson's patients has been reported in several studies [32,33]. A meta-analysis of ReHo in PD reported that ReHo is decreased in the right precentral gyrus (premotor cortex extending to the primary motor cortex, M1) in patients compared with normal controls [34].…”

Insights into the Effects of Mesenchymal Stem Cell-Derived Secretome in Parkinson’s Disease

“…Further, high miR-16-1 levels block the translation of the HSP70 (heat shock protein 70) mRNA, involved in α-synuclein inhibition, thus leading to an accumulation of α-synuclein [ 84 ]. Moreover, targeting miR-7, miR-153, and miR-34b/c from binding on their α-synuclein induces elevated levels of α-synuclein [ 85 , 86 ].…”

Inter-group Heterogeneity of Regional Homogeneity (REHO)

“…Below we list the disorders followed by the brain area in which a difference was found. In recent researches, increased or decreased REHO in certain brain regions has been associated with Methamphetamine Dependence (Yu et al, 2020), Parkinson’s Disease (Liu et al, 2019b; Li et al, 2020), Drug-Naive Bipolar Disorder (Shan et al, 2020), Schizophrenia (Ji et al, 2020), psychiatric disorders (Wei et al, 2020), seizures (Liu et al, 2019a), obsessive-compulsive disorder (Yang et al, 2019), manic pediatric bipolar disorder (Xiao et al, 2019), white matter hyperintensities and cognitive impairment (Ye et al, 2019), Strabismus and Amblyopia (Shao et al, 2019) and corneal ulcer (Xu et al, 2019), psychiatric disorders (Wei et al, 2020), Alzheimer (Cheng et al, 2019), Vascular mild cognitive impairment (Zuo et al, 2019). Figure 1 demonstrate brain regions where REHO is most associated to mental disorders or other diseases mentioned in recent REHO researches.…”