Alterations in regional homogeneity of resting-state brain activity in fatigue of Parkinson’s disease

Fatigue is a common complaint in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the neural bases of fatigue in PD remain uncertain. In this cross-sectional study, our aim was to study the change of the local brain function in PD patients with fatigue. Among 49 patients with PD, 17 of them had fatigue and the remaining 32 patients without fatigue, and 25 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were enrolled. All subjects were evaluated with Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) and had a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scan. The fMRI images were analyzed using regional homogeneity (ReHo) to study the change of the local brain function. ReHo analysis controlling for gray matter volume, age, gender, and education showed decreased ReHo in the left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the right superior frontal gyrus (dorsolateral part), and increased ReHo in the left postcentral gyrus and the right inferior frontal gyrus (orbital and triangular part), compared PD-F with PD-NF; In PD patients, the regional activity in the left ACC and the right superior frontal gyrus (dorsolateral part) was negatively correlated with the FSS scores, while that in the left postcentral gyrus, the right inferior frontal gyrus (orbital and triangular part) was positively correlated with the FSS scores. This study demonstrates that brain areas including frontal, postcentral and ACC regions indicative of sensory, motor, and cognitive systems are involved in fatigue in PD patients.