Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Background
Motor impairments in those with isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD) significantly increases the likelihood of developing Lewy body disease (e.g. Parkinson's disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies).Objective
This study sought to explore the prodromal process of neurodegeneration by examining the neural signature underlying motor deficits in iRBD patients.Methods
A virtual reality (VR) gait paradigm (which has previously been shown to elicit adaptive changes in gait performance whilst navigating doorways in Parkinson's Disease - PD) was paired with fMRI to investigate whether iRBD patients demonstrated worsened motor performance and altered connectivity across frontoparietal, motor and basal ganglia networks compared to healthy controls. Forty participants (23 iRBD and 17 healthy controls) completed the virtual reality gait task whilst in the MRI scanner, and an additional cohort of 19 Early PD patients completed the behavioural virtual reality gait task.Results
As predicted, iRBD patients demonstrated slower and more variable stepping compared to healthy control participants and demonstrated an exaggerated response when navigating narrow compared to wide doorways, a phenomenon characteristically seen in PD. The iRBD patients also demonstrated less BOLD signal change in the left posterior putamen and right mesencephalic locomotor region, as well as reduced functional connectivity between the frontoparietal network and the motor network, when navigating narrow versus wide doorways compared to healthy control participants.Conclusions
Taken together, this study demonstrates that iRBD patients have altered task-related brain connectivity, which may represent the neural underpinnings of early motor impairments that are evident in iRBD.
SUBMITTER: Ehgoetz Martens KA
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8844611 | biostudies-literature | 2022
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

Ehgoetz Martens Kaylena A KA Matar Elie E Phillips Joseph R JR Shine James M JM Grunstein Ron R RR Halliday Glenda M GM Lewis Simon J G SJG
NeuroImage. Clinical 20220207
<h4>Background</h4>Motor impairments in those with isolated REM sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD) significantly increases the likelihood of developing Lewy body disease (e.g. Parkinson's disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies).<h4>Objective</h4>This study sought to explore the prodromal process of neurodegeneration by examining the neural signature underlying motor deficits in iRBD patients.<h4>Methods</h4>A virtual reality (VR) gait paradigm (which has previously been shown to elicit adaptive chan ...[more]