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Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Parkinson’s Disease

  • Movement Disorders (M Okun, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Neuroimaging advances over the past several decades have provided increased understanding of the structural and functional brain changes that occur with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Examination of resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) provides a noninvasive method that focuses on low-frequency spontaneous fluctuations in the blood-oxygenation-level-dependent signal that occurs when an individual is at rest. Several analysis methods have been developed and used to explore how PD affects resting state activity and functional connectivity, and the purpose of this review is to highlight the critical advances made thus far. Some discrepancies in the rs-fMRI and PD literature exist, and we make recommendations for consideration in future studies. The rs-fMRI technique holds promise for investigating brain changes associated with the motor and nonmotor symptoms of PD, and for revealing important variations across large-scale networks of the brain in PD.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01 NS052318, R01 NS075012) and the Bachmann–Strauss Dystonia & Parkinson Foundation.

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Conflict of Interest

Janey Prodoehl has received paid travel expenses from the Federation of State Boards of Physical Therapy.

Roxana G. Burciu is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01 NS052318), the Bachmann–Strauss Dystonia & Parkinson Foundation, and Tyler’s Hope Foundation.

David E. Vaillancourt has received grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01 NS052318, R01 NS075012), the Bachmann–Strauss Dystonia & Parkinson Foundation, and Tyler’s Hope Foundation. He has also received board membership honoraria from the National Institutes of Health as a study section member, consultancy fees from University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and the University of Illinois at Chicago, and honoraria from the University of Colorado and the University of Pittsburgh.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Correspondence to David E. Vaillancourt.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Movement Disorders

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Prodoehl, J., Burciu, R.G. & Vaillancourt, D.E. Resting State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Parkinson’s Disease. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 14, 448 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-014-0448-6

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