Wei Wei, Wang Xinhui, Han Chao, Shen Yu, Li Panlong, Bai Yan, Liu Shuo, Xu Jingyao, Shi Yanhong, Li Zhou, Wang Meiyun
Department of Radiology, Zhengzhou University People's Hospital and Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China.
Department of Radiology, General Hospital of Pingmei Shenma Medical Group, Pingdingshan, China.
Front Neurosci. 2025 Aug 11;19:1627838. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1627838. eCollection 2025.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder with some progressive impairment and an unclear pathogenesis.
This study aimed to use resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and graph analysis approaches to compare changes in brain functional network topology in PD at different disease stages.
A total of 58 PD patients, comprising 29 early-stage PD (PD-E) and 29 middle-to-late stage PD (PD-M), and 29 age- and sex-matched healthy control (HC) participants, were recruited. All subjects underwent clinical assessments and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning. We analyzed alterations in the global, regional, and modular topological characteristics of brain functional networks among different disease stages of PD patients and HC participants. Furthermore, we also examined the relationship between topological features with significant group effects and clinical characteristics, including the Movement Disorder Society's Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale III (MDS-UPDRS III) score and Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) stage.
At the global level, PD-M and PD-E exhibited lower clustering coefficient, and PD-M also exhibited lower local efficiency and normalized characteristic path length relative to HC. At the regional level, PD-M and PD-E showed lower nodal centrality in temporal-occipital regions and higher centrality in brain regions related to the default mode network and the frontoparietal control network compared to HC. Notably, nodal centrality metrics of the left middle frontal gyrus and the temporal pole of the right middle temporal gyrus were associated with the MDS-UPDRS III score and H&Y stage.
This study found that the brain functional networks were disrupted at varying degrees in patients with PD at different disease stages. These findings contribute to our understanding of the topological changes in the neural networks associated with the severity of PD.
帕金森病（PD）是一种神经退行性疾病，存在一些进行性损害且发病机制不明。
本研究旨在使用静息态功能磁共振成像（rs-fMRI）和图谱分析方法，比较不同疾病阶段帕金森病患者脑功能网络拓扑结构的变化。
共招募了58例帕金森病患者，其中包括29例早期帕金森病（PD-E）和29例中晚期帕金森病（PD-M），以及29例年龄和性别匹配的健康对照（HC）参与者。所有受试者均接受了临床评估和磁共振成像（MRI）扫描。我们分析了帕金森病患者和健康对照参与者不同疾病阶段脑功能网络的全局、区域和模块拓扑特征的改变。此外，我们还研究了具有显著组间效应的拓扑特征与临床特征之间的关系，包括运动障碍协会统一帕金森病评定量表III（MDS-UPDRS III）评分和霍恩与雅尔（H&Y）分期。
在全局水平上，与健康对照相比，PD-M和PD-E的聚类系数较低，PD-M的局部效率和标准化特征路径长度也较低。在区域水平上，与健康对照相比，PD-M和PD-E在颞枕区域的节点中心性较低，而在与默认模式网络和额顶控制网络相关的脑区中心性较高。值得注意的是，左侧额中回和右侧颞中回颞极的节点中心性指标与MDS-UPDRS III评分和H&Y分期相关。
本研究发现，不同疾病阶段的帕金森病患者脑功能网络存在不同程度的破坏。这些发现有助于我们理解与帕金森病严重程度相关的神经网络拓扑变化。
