The study covered in this summary was published in medRxiv.org as a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed.
Key Takeaways
This study suggests and integrates new methods of spectral brain mapping and speech impairment quantification to characterize the functional neural pathology that plays a role in speech impairment in Parkinson's disease (PD).
In a large group of patients with PD, a pathological relationship between articulation impairments and spectral deviations in the left inferior frontal cortex (LIFC) was identified, especially in the alpha and delta bands.
In healthy adults, the LIFC is a focal point that features multifrequency interactions with a number of language network regions.
The more significant the spectral deviations in the LIFC, the more evident the articulation deficits in patients with PD.
The data also revealed that neurophysiological connectivity between LIFC and a network of somatomotor cortices in the beta band independently predicted articulation impairments and fully mediated the effect of cognitive abilities on these impairments.
As a group, these results supply a spatially- and spectrally-resolved cortical network underlying articulatory impairments in PD.
These findings may be valuable in future biomarker research and therapeutic targeting in PD.
The researchers also expect that the new, individualized modeling approach of spectral brain pathology for each patient may translate and be worthwhile for other clinical populations.
