Parkinson Disease and Normal Aging
11-01-2023“Our principal component analyses showed a significant relationship between centro-cingulate cholinergic afferent changes and age in our Parkinson disease subjects.”
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BUFFALO, NY- November 1, 2023 – A new research perspective was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 20, entitled, “Cholinergic centro-cingulate network in Parkinson disease and normal aging.”
In their new perspective, researchers Nicolaas I. Bohnen, Sygrid van der Zee and Roger Albin from University of Michigan, Veterans Administration Ann Arbor Healthcare System, University of Groningen, and the University Medical Center Groningen discussed Parkinson disease (PD). Decreased cholinergic binding within the recently identified centro-cingulate brain network has been shown to robustly correlate with the severity of cognitive impairment in 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.
“We recently reported novel data-driving findings suggesting that cholinergic innervation deficits in centro-cingulate brain regions may be an important contributor to cognitive impairments in PD [1].”
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.”
Read the full paper: DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205209
Corresponding Author: Nicolaas I. Bohnen
Corresponding Email: nbohnen@umich.edu
Keywords: centro-cingulate network, cholinergic, cognition, motor, Parkinson disease
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About Aging-US:
Aging publishes research papers in all fields of aging research including but not limited, aging from yeast to mammals, cellular senescence, age-related diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s diseases and their prevention and treatment, anti-aging strategies and drug development and especially the role of signal transduction pathways such as mTOR in aging and potential approaches to modulate these signaling pathways to extend lifespan. The journal aims to promote treatment of age-related diseases by slowing down aging, validation of anti-aging drugs by treating age-related diseases, prevention of cancer by inhibiting aging. Cancer and COVID-19 are age-related diseases.
Aging is indexed by PubMed/Medline (abbreviated as “Aging (Albany NY)”), PubMed Central, Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (abbreviated as “Aging‐US” and listed in the Cell Biology and Geriatrics & Gerontology categories), Scopus (abbreviated as “Aging” and listed in the Cell Biology and Aging categories), Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, EMBASE, META (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) (2018-2022), and Dimensions (Digital Science).
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