Microstructural white matter changes underlying speech deficits in Parkinson's disease.

Speech impairments are one of the common symptoms of individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, little is known about the underlying neuroanatomical structural deficits specifically in the basal ganglia-thalamocortical (BGTC) loop in the speech deficits of PD. Here we investigated white matter differences in PD using probabilistic tractography. Diffusion tensor imaging data were downloaded from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative database. We included three groups of participants: 20 PD individuals with speech deficits, 20 PD individuals without speech deficits, and 20 age- and gender-matched control participants. Overall, PD individuals with speech deficits had higher mean diffusivity in the BGTC pathway in the left hemisphere compared with PD individuals without speech deficits. The present study exhibits that there may be a distinct pathophysiological profile of white matter for speech deficits in PD. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Citation

Fatemeh Mollaei, Mohammed Asif Basha Chinoor. Microstructural white matter changes underlying speech deficits in Parkinson's disease. Brain and language. 2024 Feb;249:105378

Mesh Tags

PMID: 38198905

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