Hypo-connectivity of the primary somatosensory cortex in Parkinson's disease: a resting-state functional MRI study.

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BackgroundParkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by a range of motor symptoms as well as documented sensory dysfunction. This sensory dysfunction can present itself either as a "pure" sensory disturbance or as a consequence of sensory-motor integration within the central nervous system. This study aims to investigate changes in the functional connectivity of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) and its clinical significance in Parkinson's disease (PD), an area that has received limited attention in previous neuroimaging studies.MethodsThis study included thirty-three patients with PD and thirty-four healthy controls (HCs). Clinical evaluations were conducted to assess the clinical manifestations, severity, and functional capacity of all the patients. Resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) was employed to evaluate the functional connectivity of six paired S1 subregions in the participants. Seed-based correlation (SBC) analysis was utilized to construct the correlation matrix among the subregions and to generate connectivity maps between the subregions and the remaining brain voxels. Finally, the study employed partial least-squares (PLS) correlation analysis to investigate the association between modified functional connectivity and clinical characteristics in PD patients.ResultsIn the correlation matrix, patients with PD demonstrated a notable decrease in functional connectivity across various S1 subregions in comparison to HCs (p p ConclusionThis study offers novel insights into the neurobiological mechanisms that contribute to S1 dysfunction in PD, highlighting the significant involvement of S1 hypo-connectivity in the motor disturbances observed in PD patients.

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