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Altered striatal circuits underlie characteristic personality traits in Parkinson’s disease

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Abstract

Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been suggested to share personality traits characterised by low novelty-seeking and high harm-avoidance. Although a link between novelty-seeking and dopamine is hypothesised, the link is not fully supported by 6-[18F]fluoro-l-dopa positron emission tomography (PET) studies. Meanwhile, tractography studies with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) link personality to the connectivity of the striatum in healthy subjects. Here, we investigated neurochemical and anatomical correlates of characteristic personality traits in PD. Sixteen PD patients and 28 healthy controls were assessed using the Temperament and Character Inventory. All patients and 17 randomly selected controls were scanned with 2β-carbomethoxy-3β-(4-fluorophenyl)-[N-11C-methyl]tropane ([11C]CFT) PET to measure striatal dopamine transporter availability. All subjects were scanned with MRI to evaluate the connectivity of the striatum using probabilistic tractography. PET findings revealed no correlation of novelty-seeking and harm-avoidance with [11C]CFT uptake in patients or controls. Novelty-seeking correlated positively with the connectivity strength of the striatum with the hippocampus and amygdala in both patients and controls. Harm-avoidance and the fibre connectivity strength of the striatum including ventral area with the amygdala correlated negatively in patients and positively in controls, which differed significantly between the groups. Our data support the notion that the fibre connectivity of the striatum with limbic and frontal areas underlies the personality profile. Furthermore, our findings suggest that higher harm-avoidance in PD is linked to alterations of the network, including the nucleus accumbens and amygdala.

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Acknowledgments

We thank S. Kawase, Division of Clinical Radiology Service, Kyoto University Hospital, for his expert help with PET scanning.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, 54 Kawahara-cho, Shogoin, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8507, Japan

    Toru Ishii, Nobukatsu Sawamoto, Hayato Tabu & Hidenao Fukuyama

  2. Department of Neurology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, 53 Kawahara-cho, Shogoin, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8507, Japan

    Nobukatsu Sawamoto, Hayato Tabu & Ryosuke Takahashi

  3. Department of Human Health Sciences, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, 54 Kawahara-cho, Shogoin, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8507, Japan

    Nobukatsu Sawamoto

  4. Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, 54 Kawahara-cho, Shogoin, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8507, Japan

    Hidekazu Kawashima, Tomohisa Okada & Kaori Togashi

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  1. Toru Ishii
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  2. Nobukatsu Sawamoto
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Correspondence to Nobukatsu Sawamoto.

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All subjects provided written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and the dictates of the Ethics Committee of Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine prior to their inclusion in the study. All experimental protocol and relevant issues of the study were approved by the Ethics Committee of Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine.

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Ishii, T., Sawamoto, N., Tabu, H. et al. Altered striatal circuits underlie characteristic personality traits in Parkinson’s disease. J Neurol 263, 1828–1839 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-016-8206-0

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