Abnormal baseline brain activity in non-depressed Parkinson's disease and depressed Parkinson's disease: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study

PLoS One. 2013 May 22;8(5):e63691. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0063691. Print 2013.

Abstract

Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder observed in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, however the neural contribution to the high rate of depression in the PD group is still unclear. In this study, we used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the underlying neural mechanisms of depression in PD patients. Twenty-one healthy individuals and thirty-three patients with idiopathic PD, seventeen of whom were diagnosed with major depressive disorder, were recruited. An analysis of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) was performed on the whole brain of all subjects. Our results showed that depressed PD patients had significantly decreased ALFF in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC) and the rostral anterior cingulated cortex (rACC) compared with non-depressed PD patients. A significant positive correlation was found between Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and ALFF in the DLPFC. The findings of changed ALFF in these brain regions implied depression in PD patients may be associated with abnormal activities of prefrontal-limbic network.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Brain / physiopathology*
  • Depression / etiology
  • Depression / physiopathology*
  • Depressive Disorder, Major / physiopathology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Parkinson Disease / complications
  • Parkinson Disease / physiopathology*
  • Prefrontal Cortex / physiopathology*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities National Key Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (2012CB720704), the Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (6121001), General Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (61222113), Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-12-0056) and program of State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning (CNLYB1216). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.