Neuroanatomical substrates in Parkinson’s Disease psychosis and their association with serotonergic receptor gene expression: A coordinate-based meta-regression analysis

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundCommon neural underpinning of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) psychosis across different structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies remains unclear to this day with few studies and even fewer meta-analyses available.ObjectivesOur meta-analysis aimed to identify and summarise studies using MRI approach to identify PD psychosis-specific brain regions and examine the relation between cortical volume loss and dopaminergic and serotonergic receptor density.MethodsPubMed, Web of Science and Embase were searched for MRI studies of PD psychosis (PDP) compared to PD patients without psychosis (PDnP). Seed-baseddMapping with Permutation of Subject Images was applied in the meta-analysis where coordinates were available. Multiple linear regressions to examine the relationship between grey matter volume loss in PDP and receptor gene expression density (extracted from the Allen Human Brain Atlas) were conducted in R.ResultsWe observed lower grey matter volume in parietal-temporo-occipital regions from our meta-analysis (N studies =10, PDP n=211, PDnP, n=298). These results remained significant after adjusting for PD medications and for cognitive scores. Grey matter volume loss in PDP was associated with local expression of 5-HT1a (b=0.109,p=0.012) and 5-HT2a receptors (b=-0.106,p=0.002) also after adjusting for PD medications (5-HT1a,p= 0.005; 5-HT2a,p= 0.001).ConclusionsWidespread cortical volume loss in the parieto-temporo-occipital regions involved in information processing and integration, as well as attention, could result in PD psychosis symptoms. Neurobiological mechanisms implicating serotonergic receptors may also contribute to this condition.