Motor progression marker for newly diagnosed drug‐naïve patients with Parkinson's disease: A resting‐state functional MRI study

The effective early prediction of clinical outcomes of Parkinson's disease (PD) is of great significance in the implementation of appropriate interventions. We aimed to propose a method based on the use of baseline resting‐state functional characteristics (i.e., fractional amplitude of low‐frequency fluctuations, fALFF) to predict motor progression in PD patients. Resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed on 48 newly‐diagnosed drug‐naïve PD patients and 27 age‐ and sex‐ matched healthy controls (HCs). Two PD subgroups were defined with different annual increase of Unified PD Rating Scale Part III motor scores. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression analysis was performed to explore the baseline region‐functional indicators for PD discrimination as well as the predictors for future motor deficits. Two significant models composed of baseline fALFF values from cerebral subregions were proposed. The classification model that distinguished PD patients from HCs (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.897) showed the most significant imaging characteristics in the putamen and precentral gyrus. The other prediction model that evaluated the degree of future deterioration of motor symptoms in PD patients (AUC = 0.916) showed the most significant imaging characteristics in the superior occipital gyrus and caudate nucleus. Furthermore, the increased regional function in bilateral caudate nuclei was correlated with the lower annual increase in motor deficits in all PD patients. The caudate nucleus might be the core region responsible for future motor deficits in newly‐diagnosed PD patients, which may aid the development of disease progression preventive strategies in clinical practice.