Abstract
Purpose of Review: Whilst gait impairment is a main cause for disability in Parkinson’s disease (PD), its neural control remains poorly understood. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of surrogate features of gait in PD. Findings: Assessing the results from PET or SPECT scans after a period of actual walking as well as fMRI during mental imagery or virtual reality (VR) gait paradigms, we found a varying pattern of gait-related brain activity. Overall, a decrease in activation of the SMA during gait was found in PD compared to elderly controls. In addition, the meta-analysis showed that the most consistent gait-related activation was situated in the cerebellar locomotor region (CLR) in PD. Summary: Despite methodological heterogeneity, the combined neuroimaging studies of gait provide new insights into its neural control in PD, suggesting that CLR activation likely serves a compensatory role in locomotion.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 49 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-12 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Aug 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Activation of likelihood estimation
- Cerebellum
- Gait
- Meta-analysis
- Neuroimaging
- Parkinson’s disease