Dysfunctional putamen modulation during bimanual finger-to-thumb movement in patients with Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting middle-aged and elderly people. PD can be viewed as “circuit disorder,” indicating that large scale cortico-subcortical pathways were involved in its pathophysiology. The brain network in an experimental context is emerging as an important biomarker in disease diagnosis and prognosis prediction. This context-dependent network for PD and the underling functional mechanism remains unclear. In this paper, the brain network profiles in 11 PD patients without dementia were studied and compared with 12 healthy controls. The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired when the subjects were performing a pseudorandomized unimanual or bimanual finger-to-thumb movement task. The activation was detected and the network profiles were analyzed by psychophysiological interaction (PPI) toolbox. For the controls and PD patients, the motor areas including the primary motor and premotor areas, supplementary motor area, the cerebellum and parts of the frontal, temporal and parietal gyrus were activated. The right putamen exhibited significant control > PD activation and weaker activity during the bimanual movement relative to the unimanual movement in the control group. The decreased putamen modulation on some nucleus in basal ganglia, such as putamen, thalamus and caudate, and some cortical areas, such as cingulate, parietal, angular, frontal, temporal and occipital gyrus was detected in the bimanual movement condition relative to the unimanual movement condition. Between-group PPI difference was detected in cingulate gyrus, angular gyrus and precuneus (control > PD) and inferior frontal gyrus (PD > control). The deficient putamen activation and its enhanced connectivity with the frontal gyrus could be a correlate of impaired basal ganglia inhibition and frontal gyrus compensation to maintain the task performance during the motor programs of PD patients.