Brain Connectivity Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Neurorehabilitation, IRCCS San Raffaele Roma, Via Val Cannuta, 247, 00166 Roma, Italy.
Department of Theoretical and Applied Sciences, eCampus University, 22060 Novedrate, Italy.
Sensors (Basel). 2021 Oct 31;21(21):7266. doi: 10.3390/s21217266.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the elderly population. Similarly to other neurodegenerative diseases, the early diagnosis of PD is quite difficult. The current pilot study aimed to explore the differences in brain connectivity between PD and NOrmal eLDerly (Nold) subjects to evaluate whether connectivity analysis may speed up and support early diagnosis. A total of 26 resting state EEGs were analyzed from 13 PD patients and 13 age-matched Nold subjects, applying to cortical reconstructions the graph theory analyses, a mathematical representation of brain architecture. Results showed that PD patients presented a more ordered structure at slow-frequency EEG rhythms (lower value of SW) than Nold subjects, particularly in the theta band, whereas in the high-frequency alpha, PD patients presented more random organization (higher SW) than Nold subjects. The current results suggest that PD could globally modulate the cortical connectivity of the brain, modifying the functional network organization and resulting in motor and non-motor signs. Future studies could validate whether such an approach, based on a low-cost and non-invasive technique, could be useful for early diagnosis, for the follow-up of PD progression, as well as for evaluating pharmacological and neurorehabilitation treatments.
帕金森病（PD）是老年人中第二常见的神经退行性疾病。与其他神经退行性疾病一样，PD 的早期诊断相当困难。本初步研究旨在探索 PD 患者与正常老年人（Nold）之间的脑连接差异，以评估连接分析是否可以加速和支持早期诊断。对 13 名 PD 患者和 13 名年龄匹配的 Nold 受试者的 26 个静息状态 EEG 进行了分析，采用皮质重建对图论分析进行了应用，这是大脑结构的数学表示。结果表明，与 Nold 受试者相比，PD 患者在慢频 EEG 节律（较低的 SW 值）下表现出更有序的结构，特别是在 theta 频段，而在高频 alpha 频段，PD 患者表现出比 Nold 受试者更随机的组织（更高的 SW）。目前的结果表明，PD 可能会全局调节大脑的皮质连接，改变功能网络组织，导致运动和非运动症状。未来的研究可以验证这种基于低成本、非侵入性技术的方法是否可用于早期诊断、PD 进展的随访以及评估药物治疗和神经康复治疗。
