School of Psychology, Institute of Brain Science and Rehabilitation, Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science of Guangdong Province, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, People's Republic of China.
Department of Radiology, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangdong General Hospital, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2019 Oct;13(5):1202-1219. doi: 10.1007/s11682-018-9936-7.
Levodopa therapy is widely recognized as an effective treatment for PD patients, however, it is rare of the study looking at effects of levodopa therapy on the whole-brain network. This study was to evaluate the effects of levodopa on whole-brain degree centrality (DC) and seed-based functional connectivity (FC) in PD patients. We recruited 26 PD patients and acquired their resting-state fMRI data before ('OFF' state) and after ('ON' state) taking a dose of 400 mg levodopa. Through constructing the voxel-based brain functional network, we calculated distant and local DC and seed-based FC. We found that compared to the healthy controls, the PD patients at 'OFF' state showed significantly decreased distant DC in several occipital regions and left postcentral gyrus, but increased distant DC in the right precentral gyrus, supplementary motor area, and several frontal regions. Meanwhile, we detected decreased local DC in the left cuneus and bilateral insula but increased local DC in several temporal regions in the PD patients at 'OFF' state compared to the controls. Using paired-sample t-tests, we found that levodopa effectively normalized the distant DC abnormalities in the PD patients particularly in the occipital regions and postcentral gyrus. Additionally, compared to 'OFF' state, the PD patients at 'ON' state showed decreased FC of the left median cingulate gyrus to brain regions in default mode network. The decreased FC of the left median cingulate gyrus to right temporal pole was associated with improved UPDRS-III score. This study provided new evidence for understanding the neural effects of levodopa therapy on the whole-brain network in PD patients.
左旋多巴治疗被广泛认为是 PD 患者的有效治疗方法，但很少有研究关注左旋多巴治疗对全脑网络的影响。本研究旨在评估左旋多巴对 PD 患者全脑度中心度（DC）和基于种子的功能连接（FC）的影响。我们招募了 26 名 PD 患者，并在服用 400mg 左旋多巴前后（“OFF”状态）采集了他们的静息态 fMRI 数据。通过构建基于体素的脑功能网络，我们计算了远距离和局部 DC 以及基于种子的 FC。与健康对照组相比，“OFF”状态下的 PD 患者在几个枕叶区域和左侧中央后回表现出明显的远距离 DC 降低，但右侧中央前回、辅助运动区和几个额叶区域的远距离 DC 增加。同时，与对照组相比，“OFF”状态下的 PD 患者在左侧楔前叶和双侧岛叶表现出局部 DC 降低，但在几个颞叶区域表现出局部 DC 增加。使用配对样本 t 检验，我们发现左旋多巴有效纠正了 PD 患者的远距离 DC 异常，特别是在枕叶和中央后回区域。此外，与“OFF”状态相比，“ON”状态下的 PD 患者表现出左中央扣带回与默认模式网络中脑区的 FC 降低。左中央扣带回与右侧颞极的 FC 降低与 UPDRS-III 评分的改善有关。本研究为理解左旋多巴治疗对 PD 患者全脑网络的神经影响提供了新的证据。
