Ghahremani Maryam, Yoo Jaejun, Chung Sun Ju, Yoo Kwangsun, Ye Jong C, Jeong Yong
Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.
Department of Neurology, Asan Medical Center, Ulsan University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
J Mov Disord. 2018 Jan;11(1):13-23. doi: 10.14802/jmd.17061. Epub 2018 Jan 23.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that mainly leads to the impairment of patients' motor function, as well as of cognition, as it progresses. This study tried to investigate the impact of PD on the resting state functional connectivity of the default mode network (DMN), as well as of the entire brain.
Sixty patients with PD were included and compared to 60 matched normal control (NC) subjects. For the local connectivity analysis, the resting state fMRI data were analyzed by seed-based correlation analyses, and then a novel persistent homology analysis was implemented to examine the connectivity from a global perspective.
The functional connectivity of the DMN was decreased in the PD group compared to the NC, with a stronger difference in the medial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, the results of the persistent homology analysis indicated that the PD group had a more locally connected and less globally connected network compared to the NC.
Our findings suggest that the DMN is altered in PD, and persistent homology analysis, as a useful measure of the topological characteristics of the networks from a broader perspective, was able to identify changes in the large-scale functional organization of the patients' brain.
帕金森病（PD）是一种神经退行性疾病，随着病情进展，主要导致患者运动功能以及认知功能受损。本研究试图探究帕金森病对默认模式网络（DMN）以及全脑静息态功能连接的影响。
纳入60例帕金森病患者，并与60例匹配的正常对照（NC）受试者进行比较。对于局部连接性分析，通过基于种子点的相关性分析对静息态功能磁共振成像（fMRI）数据进行分析，然后实施一种新的持久同调分析，从全局角度检查连接性。
与NC组相比，PD组DMN的功能连接性降低，在内侧前额叶皮质差异更明显。此外，持久同调分析结果表明，与NC组相比，PD组的网络在局部连接性更强而全局连接性更弱。
我们的研究结果表明，帕金森病患者的DMN发生了改变，持久同调分析作为一种从更广泛角度衡量网络拓扑特征的有用方法，能够识别患者大脑大规模功能组织的变化。
