Recently, it was shown that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) who exhibit an “Alzheimer's disease (AD)-like” pattern of brain atrophy are at greater risk for future cognitive decline. This study aimed to investigate whether this association is domain-specific and whether atrophy associated with brain aging also relates to cognitive impairment in PD. SPARE-AD, an MRI index capturing AD-like atrophy, and atrophy-based estimates of brain age were computed from longitudinal structural imaging data of 178 PD patients and 84 healthy subjects from the LANDSCAPE cohort. All patients underwent an extensive neuropsychological test battery. Patients diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or dementia were found to have higher SPARE-AD scores as compared to patients with normal cognition and healthy controls. All patient groups showed increased brain age. SPARE-AD predicted impairment in memory, language and executive functions, whereas advanced brain age was associated with deficits in attention and working memory. Data suggest that SPARE-AD and brain age are differentially related to domain-specific cognitive decline in PD. The underlying pathomechanisms remain to be determined.

最近，研究表明，表现出“阿尔茨海默病 (AD) 样”脑萎缩模式的帕金森病 (PD) 患者未来认知能力下降的风险更大。本研究旨在调查这种关联是否是特定领域的，以及与脑衰老相关的萎缩是否也与 PD 的认知障碍有关。SPARE-AD 是一种捕捉 AD 样萎缩的 MRI 指数，以及基于萎缩的脑年龄估计值，是根据 LANDSCAPE 队列中 178 名 PD 患者和 84 名健康受试者的纵向结构成像数据计算的。所有患者都接受了广泛的神经心理学测试。与认知正常的患者和健康对照组相比，被诊断患有轻度认知障碍或痴呆的患者的 SPARE-AD 评分更高。所有患者组均显示脑年龄增加。SPARE-AD 预测记忆力、语言和执行功能受损，而脑龄高与注意力和工作记忆缺陷有关。数据表明，SPARE-AD 和脑年龄与 PD 中特定领域的认知下降有不同的相关性。潜在的病理机制仍有待确定。