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Cerebellar and cerebral white matter changes in Parkinson’s disease with resting tremor

  • Advanced Neuroimaging
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Abstract

Purpose

Cerebellum modulates the amplitude of resting tremor in Parkinson’s disease (PD) via cerebello-thalamo-cortical (CTC) circuit. Tremor-related white matter alterations have been identified in PD patients by pathological studies, but in vivo evidence is limited; the influence of such cerebellar white matter alterations on tremor-related brain network, including CTC circuit, is also unclear. In this study, we investigated the cerebral and cerebellar white matter alterations in PD patients with resting tremor using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

Methods

In this study, 30 PD patients with resting tremor (PDWR), 26 PD patients without resting tremor (PDNR), and 30 healthy controls (HCs) from the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) cohort were included. Tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) and region of interest-based analyses were conducted to determine white matter difference. Correlation analysis between DTI measures and clinical characteristics was also performed.

Results

In the whole brain, TBSS and region of interest-based analyses identified higher fractional anisotropy (FA) value, lower mean diffusivity (MD) value, and lower radial diffusivity (RD) in multiple fibers. In the cerebellum, TBSS analysis revealed significantly higher FA value, decreased RD value as well as MD value in multiple cerebellar tracts including the inferior cerebellar peduncle (ICP) and middle cerebellar peduncle (MCP) when comparing the PDWR with HC, and higher FA value in the MCP when compared with PDNR.

Conclusion

We identified better white matter integrity in the cerebrum and cerebellum in PDWR indicating a potential association between the cerebral and cerebellar white matter and resting tremor in PD.

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Data availability

The data for the PPMI cohort is available at https://www.ppmi-info.org/access-data-specimens/download-data. All authors were approved for use of the database by PPMI study as independent researchers. All other data and codes relating to this study are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding authors.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 82001367, receiver: Xi Liu), Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (grant number: cstc2021jcyj-msxmX0180, receiver: Xi Liu), Kuanren Talent Program of The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University (receiver: Xi Liu), and Graduate Students Science Innovation Project of Chongqing (grant number: CYS22349, receiver: Yuke Zhong).

Funding

This study is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 82001367, receiver: Xi Liu), Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (grant number: cstc2021jcyj-msxmX0180, receiver: Xi Liu), Kuanren Talent Program of The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University (receiver: Xi Liu), and Graduate Students Science Innovation Project of Chongqing (grant number: CYS22349, receiver: Yuke Zhong).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, 74 Linjiang Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing, 400010, China

    Yuke Zhong, Hang Liu, Guohui Liu, Yi Liang, Chengcheng Dai, Lili Zhao, Hongyu Lai, Lijuan Mo, Changhong Tan, Fen Deng, Xi Liu & Lifen Chen

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  1. Yuke Zhong
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  2. Hang Liu
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  3. Guohui Liu
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  11. Xi Liu
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Contributions

L.C., F.D., and X.L.: conception and design; Y.Z., H.L., H.L., and G.L.: data screening; Y.Z., L.Z., C.D., and Y.L.: image processing and statistical analysis; Y.Z.: first draft; Y.Z., L.M., C.T., and X.L.: review and editing. All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xi Liu or Lifen Chen.

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The authors declare no financial or non-financial interest.

Ethics approval and informed consent

The PPMI study has been approved by the institutional review boards, and written informed consent was provided by all subjects. Details are available at https://www.ppmi-info.org/access-data-specimens/download-data.

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Zhong, Y., Liu, H., Liu, G. et al. Cerebellar and cerebral white matter changes in Parkinson’s disease with resting tremor. Neuroradiology 65, 1497–1506 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00234-023-03206-w

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