Functional Connectivity of the Corticobasal Ganglia–Thalamocortical Network in Parkinson Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis with Cross-Validation

Purpose To quantitatively summarize the functional connectivity (FC) feature of the corticobasal ganglia-thalamocortical (CBTC) network in patients with Parkinson disease (PD) by means of a meta-analysis with cross-validation. Materials and Methods For this prospective study, a systematic literature search in the PubMed and EMBASE databases was performed for resting-state functional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging studies of PD published between January 2000 and May 2017. Then, a coordinate-based meta-analysis was conducted by Effect Size-Signed Differential Mapping. A cross-validation analysis was performed by using an independent resting-state functional MR imaging data set that contained 25 patients with PD and 19 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy control participants. Two-sample t test was performed on FC maps between PD and control groups. Results Thirty studies with 854 patients with PD and 831 control participants were included in this meta-analysis. The main meta-analysis found increased FC in the left pre- and postcentral gyrus in patients with PD compared with healthy control participants (z = 2.6; P < .001). The abnormality of the postcentral gyrus was further confirmed by subgroup meta-analyses on medication-naive (n = 25; z = 2.2; P < .001) and medication-off (n = 11; z = 1.5; P < .001) experiments, which suggested that the finding was unaffected by medication. The abnormality of the postcentral gyrus was cross-validated by the independent data set (t = 5.0; P < .05), which suggested a high reproducibility and generalizability. Conclusion This meta-analysis emphasizes the left postcentral gyrus as a critical region in PD, which may become a potential target for clinical intervention. © RSNA, 2018 Online supplemental material is available for this article.