Functional role of the cerebellum in Parkinson’s disease: a PET study

Objectives: To test for cerebellar involvement in motor and nonmotor impairments in Parkinson’s disease (PD), and to determine patterns of metabolic correlations with supratentorial brain structures, we correlated clinical motor, cognitive and psychiatric scales with cerebellar metabolism.

Methods: We included 90 patients with PD. Motor, cognitive and psychiatric domains were assessed, and resting-state 18FDG-PET metabolic imaging was performed. The motor, cognitive and psychiatric scores were entered separately in a principal component analysis. We looked for correlations between these three principal components and cerebellar metabolism. Furthermore, we extracted the mean glucose metabolism value for each significant cerebellar cluster and looked for patterns of cerebrum‑cerebellum metabolic correlations.

Results: Severity of impairment was correlated with increased metabolism in the anterior lobes and vermis (motor domain), and the right Crus I, Crus II, and declive (cognitive ...