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Morphometric changes in the reward system of Parkinson’s disease patients with impulse control disorders

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Abstract

Impulse control disorders (ICDs) occur in a subset of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) who are receiving dopamine replacement therapy. In this study, we aimed to investigate structural abnormalities within the mesocortical and limbic cortices and subcortical structures in PD patients with ICDs. We studied 18 PD patients with ICDs, 18 PD patients without ICDs and a group of 24 age and sex-matched healthy controls. Cortical thickness (CTh) and subcortical nuclei volume analyses were carried out using the automated surface-based analysis package FreeSurfer (version 5.3.0). We found significant differences in MRI measures between the three groups. There was volume loss in the nucleus accumbens of both PD patients with ICDs and without ICDs compared to the control group. In addition, PD patients with ICDs showed significant atrophy in caudate, hippocampus and amygdala compared to the group of healthy controls. PD patients with ICDs had significant increased cortical thickness in rostral anterior cingulate cortex and frontal pole compared to PD patients without ICDs. Cortical thickness in rostral anterior cingulate and frontal pole was increased in PD patients with ICDs compared to the control group, but the differences failed to reach corrected levels of statistical significance. PD patients with ICDs showed increased cortical thickness in medial prefrontal regions. We speculate that these findings reflect either a pre-existing neural trait vulnerability to impulsivity or the expression of a maladaptive synaptic plasticity under non-physiological dopaminergic stimulation.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all participants and their families. Marios Politis research is supported by Parkinson’s UK, Lily and Edmond J. Safra Foundation, Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), and NIHR BRC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Brain Sciences, Neurology Imaging Unit, Centre of Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration, Hammersmith Campus, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Clelia Pellicano, Flavia Niccolini, Kit Wu, Paola Piccini & Marios Politis

  2. Department of Neuroscience, Mental Health and Sensory Organs-(NESMOS), Sapienza University, Rome, Italy

    Clelia Pellicano

  3. Neurodegeneration Imaging Group, Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, 1 Windsor Walk, London, SE5 8AF, UK

    Flavia Niccolini & Marios Politis

  4. Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies, University College London, London, UK

    Sean S. O’Sullivan & Andrew J. Lees

  5. Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) and School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Andrew D. Lawrence

Authors
  1. Clelia Pellicano
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  2. Flavia Niccolini
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  3. Kit Wu
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  4. Sean S. O’Sullivan
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Correspondence to Marios Politis.

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On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional review boards and the local research ethics committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Pellicano, C., Niccolini, F., Wu, K. et al. Morphometric changes in the reward system of Parkinson’s disease patients with impulse control disorders. J Neurol 262, 2653–2661 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-015-7892-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-015-7892-3

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