Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Oct;142(4):385-391.
doi: 10.1111/ane.13320. Epub 2020 Aug 5.

Striatal dopamine transporters and cognitive function in Parkinson's disease

Jakob Stögbauer  1 , Florian Rosar  2 , Ulrich Dillmann  1 , Klaus Faßbender  1 , Samer Ezziddin  2 , Jörg Spiegel  1
Affiliations

Striatal dopamine transporters and cognitive function in Parkinson's disease

Jakob Stögbauer et al. Acta Neurol Scand. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Background: Idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by clinical motor symptoms including hypokinesia, rigidity and tremor. In addition to the movement disorder, cognitive deficits are commonly described. In the present study, we applied FP-CIT SPECT to investigate the impact of nigrostriatal dopaminergic degeneration on cognitive function in PD patients.

Methods: Fifty-four PD patients underwent [123I]FP-CIT SPECT and CERAD (Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease) testing. FP-CIT SPECT visualized the density of presynaptic dopamine transporters in both striata, each subdivided into a limbic, executive and sensorimotor subregion according to the atlas of Tziortzi et al (Cereb Cortex 24, 2014, 1165). CERAD testing quantified cognitive function.

Results: In the CERAD testing, PD patients exhibited deficits in the domains of semantic memory, attention, visuospatial function, non-verbal memory and executive function. After correction for multiple testing, the performance of the subtests Figure Recall and Trail-Making Test A correlated significantly with FP-CIT uptake into the ipsilateral executive subregion. The performance of the subtest Figure Saving correlated significantly with FP-CIT uptake into the contralateral executive subregion.

Conclusions: The significant correlation between cognitive function and density of nigrostriatal dopamine transporters, as assessed by FP-CIT SPECT, indicate that striatal dopaminergic pathways-primarily the executive striatal subregion-are relevant to cognitive processing in PD.

Keywords: FP‐CIT SPECT; Parkinson’s disease; cognitive deficits; dopamine transporters.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Deuschl G, Krack P. Morbus Parkinson. In: Hopf HC, Deuschl G, Diener HC, Reichmann H, eds. Neurologie in Praxis und Klinik, vol. 2. Stuttgart, Germany, New York, NY: Georg Thieme Company; 1999:49-69.
    1. Weintraub D, Burn DJ. Parkinson’s disease: the quintessential neuropsychiatric disorder. Mov Disord. 2011;26(6):1022-1031.
    1. Aarsland D, Creese B, Politis M, et al. Cognitive decline in Parkinson’s disease. Nat Rev Neurol. 2017;13(4):217-231.
    1. Delgado-Alvarado M, Gago B, Navalpotro-Gomez I, Jiménez-Urbieta H, Rodriguez-Oroz M. Biomarkers for dementia and mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord. 2016;31(6):861-881.
    1. Goldman JG, Aggarwal NT, Schroeder CD. Mild cognitive impairment: an update in Parkinson’s disease and lessons learned from Alzheimer´s disease. Neurodegener Dis Manag. 2015;5(5):425-443.

Substances

LinkOut - more resources