title: Abnormal functional connectivity density in Parkinson's disease.
abstract: The pathology of Parkinson's disease (PD) is not confined to the nigrostriatal pathway, but also involves widespread cerebral cortical areas. Using seed-based resting state functional connectivity, many previous studies have demonstrated that PD patients have abnormal functional integration. However, this technique strongly relies on a priori selection of the seed regions and may miss important unpredictable findings. Using an ultrafast voxel-wise functional connectivity density approach, this study performed a whole brain functional connectivity analysis to investigate the abnormal resting-state functional activities in PD patients. Compared with healthy controls, PD patients exhibited decreased short-range functional connectivity densities in regions that were mainly located in the ventral visual pathway and decreased long-range functional connectivity densities in the right middle and superior frontal gyrus, which have been speculated to be associated with visual hallucinations and cognitive dysfunction, respectively. PD patients also exhibited increased short- and long-range functional connectivity densities in the bilateral precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex, which may represent a compensatory process for maintaining normal brain function. The observed functional connectivity density alterations might be related to the disturbed structural connectivity of PD patients, leading to abnormal functional integration. Our results suggest that functional connectivity density mapping may provide a useful means to assess PD-related neurodegeneration and to study the pathophysiology of PD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, PR China.
authors.forename: Jiuquan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, PR China.
authors.forename: Wenwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Bi
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, PR China.
authors.forename: Yuling
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Elementary Educational College, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330027, PR China.
authors.forename: Maohu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, PR China.
authors.forename: Yanling
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, PR China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Southwest Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400038, PR China.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, PR China. Electronic address: yuanchao.zhang8@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Yuanchao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, PR China; National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, PR China. Electronic address: jiangtz@nlpr.ia.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Tianzi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012146:Rest; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
keywords: Functional connectivity; Functional connectivity density; Long-range FCD; Parkinson's disease; Short-range FCD