Increased Cognitive Control During Execution of Finger Tap Movement in People with Parkinson’s Disease

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Mak, Margaret K.Y.^{a; *} | Cheung, Vinci^b | Ma, Shuangye^a | Lu, Zhong L.^c | Wang, Defeng^d | Lou, Wutao^d | Shi, Lin^e | Mok, Vincent C.T.^e | Chu, Winnie C.W.^d | Hallett, Mark^f

Affiliations: [a] Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong | [b] Department of Counselling & Psychology, Shue Yan University, Hong Kong | [c] Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Brain Imaging, Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA | [d] Department of Imaging and Interventional Radiology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong | [e] Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong | [f] Human Motor Control Section, Medical Neurology Branch, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

Correspondence: [*] Correspondence to: Margaret K.Y. Mak, Associate Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong. Tel.: +852 2766 6708; Fax: +852 2330 8656; E-mail: Margaret.Mak@polyu.edu.hk.

Abstract: Background: Previous studies employed demanding and complex hand tasks to study the brain activation in people with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). There is inconsistent finding about the cerebellar activity during movement execution of this patient population. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the brain activation patterns of PD individuals in the on-state and healthy control subjects in a simple finger tapping task. Methods: Twenty-seven patients with PD and 22 age-matched healthy subjects were recruited for the study. Subjects were instructed to perform simple finger tapping tasks under self- and cue-initiated conditions in separate runs while their brain activations were captured using fMRI. Results: Healthy subjects had higher brain activity in contralateral precentral gyrus during the self-initiated task, and higher brain activity in the ipsilateral middle occipital gyrus during the cue-initiated task. PD patients had higher brain activity in the cerebellum Crus I (bilateral) and lobules VI (ipsilateral) during the self-initiated task and higher brain activity in the contralateral middle frontal gyrus during the cue-initiated task. When compared with healthy controls, PD patients had lower brain activity in the contralateral inferior parietal lobule during the self-initiated task, and lower brain activity in the ipsilateral cerebellum lobule VIII, lobule VIIB and vermis VIII, and thalamus during the cue-initiated task. Conjunction analysis indicated that both groups had activation in bilateral cerebellum and SMA and ipsilateral precentral gyrus and postcentral gyrus during both self- and cue-initiated movement. Individuals with PD exhibited higher brain activity in the executive zone (cerebellum Crus I and II) during self-initiated movement, and lower brain activity in the sensorimotor zone (i.e. lobule VIIb and VIII of the cerebellum) during cue-initiated movement. Discussions: The findings suggest that individuals with PD may use more executive control when performing simple movements.

Keywords: Cerebellum, cognition, fMRI, movement disorders, Parkinson’s disease

DOI: 10.3233/JPD-160849

Journal: Journal of Parkinson's Disease, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 639-650, 2016