# Intrinsic Activity and Cognition in Parkinson Disease Assessed by Simultaneous fMRI/EEG

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON · 2020 · $340,156

## Abstract

Cognitive impairment is the most disabling non-motor feature of Parkinson Disease (PD) and causes the
greatest degree of caregiver distress. The large majority of patients with PD will eventually suffer cognitive
impairment, and although treatment of motor parkinsonism has improved, cognitive impairment has proven
more difficult to treat. When cognitive impairment appears, it tends to have a profile of more affected and less
affected domains that suggests differential regional cortical involvement. Measurement of cognitive
performance through neuropsychological tests tells us what functions are impaired but not why. A better
understanding of the causes of impairment would help identify therapeutic targets for cognitive symptoms. This
would lay the groundwork for developing biomarkers of brain (patho)physiology that would advance the goal of
precision medicine for treatment of PD. This project exploits the discovery that regional spontaneous cortical
activity measured by fMRI at rest has a spatial structure that includes the same cognitive networks identified
during tasks. These “intrinsic networks” are altered in PD and many other diseases, providing an important
physiological connection between brain structure and cognitive function. We have developed fMRI-based
methods for sensitively quantifying differences in intrinsic networks and shown that networks differ in people
with PD and controls. Although fMRI has good spatial resolution, because of hemodynamic delay it lacks
temporal resolution. Therefore, differences in networks observed in PD may reflect differences in timing, or
dynamics, that we cannot measure at the temporal resolution of fMRI. We want to integrate our innovative
framework with a complementary modality, electroencephalography (EEG), which helps us to distinguish
differences in spatial extent and timing of networks. Recently, we have shown a systematic relationship
between intrinsic network activity and the time course of an attention network task that is different in PD and
controls. This link between intrinsic networks and task-related activity allows us to ask how intrinsic network
activity relates to cognition in PD. We hypothesize that alterations to networks that support attention and
memory are specifically related to cognitive performance in these domains in PD, and that temporal
information from EEG will help to resolve this. We will test this hypothesis by simultaneously acquiring fMRI
data (for high spatial localization of network structure) and electroencephalography (EEG) data (for high
temporal resolution) in subjects with PD and controls, as we pursue the following specific aims: (1) Analyze
and compare intrinsic activity from PD and controls obtained at rest. (2) Analyze and compare intrinsic activity
from PD and controls during a covert visuospatial attention task with and without a memory load. (3) Analyze
trajectories of longitudinal change.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9999698
- **Project number:** 5R01NS099199-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
- **Principal Investigator:** Thomas J. Grabowski
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $340,156
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-01 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9999698

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9999698, Intrinsic Activity and Cognition in Parkinson Disease Assessed by Simultaneous fMRI/EEG (5R01NS099199-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9999698. Licensed CC0.

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