Application of functional near-infrared spectroscopy in Parkinson disease / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Parkinson disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease with motor and non-motor symptoms that seriously affect the quality of life and social function of patients. The current non-invasive techniques in PD brain function studies mainly include functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography, which made it difficult to assess brain function under motor state or magnetoelectric treatment. As an emerging functional neuroimaging technique, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) can monitor the real movement-related cortical responses of PD patients in real time, providing a safe and non-invasive method with high ecological validity for direct monitoring of brain activity. This article presented a review of recent advances in the application of fNIRS technology in PD research, intending to provide new ideas for functional neuroimaging studies in PD. The results suggested that PD gait and balance deficits were closely associated with abnormal activation of the cerebral cortex, particularly the prefrontal cortex, involving a compensatory strategy of cortical cognitive resources for basal ganglia dysfunction. Drugs, deep brain stimulation, and other interventions could be applied to fNIRS techniques to evaluate neurorehabilitation effects and reveal the neural basis of intervention effects. This area of research is currently in its infancy, but the evidence provided supports for the translation of fNIRS into clinical practice. Future research should develop multimodal imaging techniques and in-depth studies of broad areas of the cerebral cortex to obtain more valuable findings for clinical practice.