Neuroimaging Analysis of Cognitive Decline in Parkinson’s Disease: A Gender Comparison

Overview

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder resulting from loss of dopamine - producing neurons in the substantia nigra. Motor symptoms include tremors, instability, and slowed movement, and non -motor symptoms include cognitive impairment, depre ssion, and speech problems. Sex differences in prevalence, symptomology, and progression of PD have been reported. For example, men are 1.5 times more likely to have PD than women. Motor symptoms present later in women, but progression and mortality rate are higher in men. This study investigated sex differences in cognitive domains with a focus on processing speed to test the hypothesis that males with PD experience greater cognitive deficits than females and decline at a faster rate compared to females. We found that PD was associated with a significant decrease in function across all cognitive domains. For PD, there was a significant group difference between males and females for processing speed and general cognition, with males performing worse than females. There was no significant difference between the rate of decline for males and females with PD. This study also investigated dopamine levels, white matter integrity, basal ganglia structures, and regional gray matter thickness to determine a correlation to gender differences in processing speed. We found that dopamine levels were significantly correlated to processing speed, as well as gray matter thickness, however, there was no significant correlation with white matter integrity. These findings support our hypothesis that men with PD experience greater processing deficits compared to women with PD, and this performance is related to dopamine and brain structures.

Competition history

• JSHS 2025 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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