Functional Brain Connectome and Its Relation to Hoehn and Yahr Stage in Parkinson Disease

Purpose To use resting-state functional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and graph theory approaches to investigate the brain functional connectome and its potential relation to disease severity in Parkinson disease (PD). Materials and Methods This case-control study was approved by the local research ethics committee, and all participants provided informed consent. There were 153 right-handed patients with PD and 81 healthy control participants recruited who were matched for age, sex, and handedness to undergo a 3-T resting-state functional MR examination. The whole-brain functional connectome was constructed by thresholding the Pearson correlation matrices of 90 brain regions, and the topologic properties were analyzed by using graph theory approaches. Nonparametric permutation tests were used to compare topologic properties, and their relationship to disease severity was assessed. Results The functional connectome in PD showed abnormalities at the global level (ie, decrease in clustering coefficient, global efficiency, and local efficiency, and increase in characteristic path length) and at the nodal level (decreased nodal centralities in the sensorimotor cortex, default mode, and temporal-occipital regions; P < .001, false discovery rate corrected). Further, the nodal centralities in left postcentral gyrus and left superior temporal gyrus correlated negatively with Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale III score (P = .038, false discovery rate corrected, r = -0.198; and P = .009, false discovery rate corrected, r = -0.270, respectively) and decreased with increasing Hoehn and Yahr stage in patients with PD. Conclusion The configurations of brain functional connectome in patients with PD were perturbed and correlated with disease severity, notably with those responsible for motor functions. These results provide topologic insights into understanding the neural functional changes in relation to disease severity of PD. ^© RSNA, 2017 Online supplemental material is available for this article. An earlier incorrect version of this article appeared online. This article was corrected on September 11, 2017.