You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Movement disorders
Original research
Evoked mid-frontal activity predicts cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease
  1. Arun Singh1,
  2. Rachel C Cole2,
  3. Arturo I Espinoza2,
  4. Jan R Wessel2,
  5. James F Cavanagh3,
  6. Nandakumar S Narayanan2
  1. 1 Division of Basic Biomedical Sciences, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota, USA
  2. 2 Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
  3. 3 Psychology Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Arun Singh, Division of Basic Biomedical Sciences, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota 57069, USA; arun.singh{at}usd.edu

Abstract

Background Cognitive dysfunction is a major feature of Parkinson’s disease (PD), but the pathophysiology remains unknown. One potential mechanism is abnormal low-frequency cortical rhythms which engage cognitive functions and are deficient in PD. We tested the hypothesis that mid-frontal delta/theta rhythms predict cognitive dysfunction in PD.

Method We recruited 100 patients with PD and 49 demographically similar control participants who completed a series of cognitive control tasks, including the Simon, oddball and interval-timing tasks. We focused on cue-evoked delta (1–4 Hz) and theta (4–7 Hz) rhythms from a single mid-frontal EEG electrode (cranial vertex (Cz)) in patients with PD who were either cognitively normal, with mild-cognitive impairments (Parkinson’s disease with mild-cognitive impairment) or had dementia (Parkinson’s disease dementia).

Results We found that PD-related cognitive dysfunction was associated with increased response latencies and decreased mid-frontal delta power across all tasks. Within patients with PD, the first principal component of evoked electroencephalography features from a single electrode (Cz) strongly correlated with clinical metrics such as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment score (r=0.34) and with National Institutes of Health Toolbox Executive Function score (r=0.46).

Conclusions These data demonstrate that cue-evoked mid-frontal delta/theta rhythms directly relate to cognition in PD. Our results provide insight into the nature of low-frequency frontal rhythms and suggest that PD-related cognitive dysfunction results from decreased delta/theta activity. These findings could facilitate the development of new biomarkers and targeted therapies for cognitive symptoms of PD.

  • EEG
  • COGNITION
  • PARKINSON'S DISEASE

Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request. All data and code are available at narayanan.lab.uiowa.edu and at OpenNeuro: https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds004580/; https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds004579; https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds004574

https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp-2022-330154

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    Data are available upon reasonable request. All data and code are available at narayanan.lab.uiowa.edu and at OpenNeuro: https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds004580/; https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds004579; https://openneuro.org/datasets/ds004574

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors AS, RCC, AIE and NN acquired the data. AS, JRW, JFC and NN conceptualised and designed the study. AS, JFC and NN conducted the analyses. AS, RCC, JRW, JFC and NN interpreted the data. AS and NN wrote the first draft of the manuscript, accepted full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish.

    • Funding This data were supported by NIH P20NS123151 and R01NS100849 to NSN and NRSA F32 AG069445-01 (RCC).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.