Research Perspective Volume 15, Issue 20 pp 10817—10820
Cholinergic centro-cingulate network in Parkinson disease and normal aging
- 1 Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48105, USA
- 2 Neurology Service and GRECC, Veterans Administration Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Ann Arbor, MI 48105, USA
- 3 Morris K. Udall Center of Excellence for Parkinson's Disease Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- 4 Parkinson’s Foundation Center of Excellence, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- 5 Department of Neurology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- 6 Department of Neuropsychology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- 7 Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Received: September 27, 2023 Accepted: October 16, 2023 Published: October 27, 2023
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205209How to Cite
Copyright: © 2023 Bohnen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Decreased cholinergic binding within the recently identified centro-cingulate brain network robustly has been shown to robustly correlate with the severity of cognitive impairment in Parkinson disease (PD). This network with key hubs within the cingulum, operculum and peri-central cortical regions also correlates with elements of parkinsonian motor impairments, including postural instability and gait difficulties, such as falls or freezing. MRI neuroimaging studies have shown that the anterior midcingulate cortex is a key node for cognitive aspects of movement generation, i.e., intentional motor control. Recent evidence also suggests a novel aspect of organization of primary motor cortex, describing “effector” regions for fine movement control intercalated with interlinked “inter-effector” regions devoted to whole-body control. A distinguishing feature of inter-effector regions is tight linkage to the cingular and opercular regions. Such inter-effector regions have been proposed to be part of a greater somato-cognitive action network necessary for integration of goals and movement.
Recent evidence also points to vulnerabilities of cholinergic nerve terminals in the centro-cingulate network in older non-PD adults. These features of normal aging underscore that cortical cholinergic terminal losses in age-associated neurodegenerative disorders are likely not exclusively the result of disease-specific etiologies but also related to otherwise normal aging. Practical implications of this overlap are that addressing disease-specific and general aging etiologies involved in neurodegeneration, may be of benefit in age-associated neurodegenerative disorders where significant cholinergic systems degeneration is present.