Central modulation of parasympathetic outflow is impaired in de novo Parkinson’s disease patients

Task- and stimulus-based neuroimaging studies have begun to unveil the central autonomic network which modulates autonomic nervous system activity. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the central autonomic network without the bias constituted by the use of a task. Additionally, we assessed whether this circuitry presents signs of dysregulation in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease (PD), a condition which may be associated with dysautonomia. We combined heart-rate-variability based methods for time-varying assessments of the autonomic nervous system outflow with resting-state fMRI in 14 healthy controls and 14 de novo PD patients, evaluating the correlations between fMRI time-series and the instantaneous high-frequency component of the heart-rate-variability power spectrum, a marker of parasympathetic outflow. In control subjects, the high-frequency component of the heart-rate-variability power spectrum was significantly anti-correlated with fMRI time-series in several cortical, subcortical and brainstem regions. This complex central network was not detectable in PD patients. In between-group analysis, we found that in healthy controls the brain activation related to the high-frequency component of the heart-rate-variability power spectrum was significantly less than in PD patients in the mid and anterior cingulum, sensorimotor cortex and supplementary motor area, insula and temporal lobe, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and in a region encompassing posterior cingulum, precuneus and parieto-occipital cortex. Our results indicate that the complex central network which modulates parasympathetic outflow in the resting state is impaired in the early clinical stages of PD.