Department of Ophthalmology, IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy.
IRCCS Centro Neurolesi Bonino Pulejo, S.S. 113 - Contrada Casazza, 98124, Messina, Italy.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2019 Aug;13(4):933-944. doi: 10.1007/s11682-018-9907-z.
The claustrum is a thin grey matter structure which is involved in a wide brain network. Previous studies suggested a link between claustrum and Parkinson's Disease (PD), showing how α-synuclein pathology may affect claustral neurons as well as how α-synuclein immunoreactivity may correlate with the onset of cognitive dysfunctions. Our aim is to investigate, via diffusion MRI, claustral structural network changes in drug naïve PD patients, with the goal to understand whether such changes may contribute to cognitive decline in PD. 15 drug naïve PD patients and 15 age-matched controls were enrolled; MR protocol was performed on a 3T scanner. Whole brain probabilistic tractography was obtained using Constrained Spherical Deconvolution (CSD) diffusion model. Connectivity matrices were estimated based on a robust anatomical parcellation of structural T1w images. In PD group, impaired subnetworks were correlated with psychological examinations. We found decreased claustral connectivity in PD patients compared to controls, especially with areas mainly involved in visuomotor and attentional systems. Moreover, we found a positive correlation between MoCA and density of pathways connecting ipsilaterally claustrum to left (r = 0.578, p = 0.021) and right (r = 0.640, p = 0.020) Pars Orbitalis. Our results support the hypothesis of claustral involvement in cognitive decline in drug naïve PD patients.
屏状核是一种薄的灰质结构，参与广泛的大脑网络。先前的研究表明屏状核与帕金森病（PD）之间存在联系，显示α-突触核蛋白病理学如何影响屏状核神经元，以及α-突触核蛋白免疫反应性如何与认知功能障碍的发生相关。我们的目的是通过弥散 MRI 研究未经药物治疗的 PD 患者的屏状核结构网络变化，以了解这些变化是否可能导致 PD 认知能力下降。纳入了 15 名未经药物治疗的 PD 患者和 15 名年龄匹配的对照组；MR 方案在 3T 扫描仪上进行。使用受限球谐反卷积（CSD）扩散模型获得全脑概率性束追踪。基于结构 T1w 图像的稳健解剖分割来估计连接矩阵。在 PD 组中，受损的子网络与心理检查相关。与对照组相比，PD 患者的屏状核连接减少，尤其是与主要涉及视觉运动和注意力系统的区域。此外，我们发现 MoCA 与连接同侧屏状核到左侧（r=0.578，p=0.021）和右侧（r=0.640，p=0.020）眶额回的路径密度之间存在正相关。我们的结果支持未经药物治疗的 PD 患者中屏状核参与认知能力下降的假说。
