Striatal network dysfunction underlying speech impairment in early Parkinson's disease.
12 affiliations
- 1Institut du Cerveau - ICM, Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne University, Paris, France.
- 2Biological Sciences Department, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
- 3Department of Neurosciences, Imaging, and Clinical Sciences, Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies, 'G. D'Annunzio' University of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy.
- 4AP-HP, Department of Neurology, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France.
- 5AP-HP, Department of Neuroradiology, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France.
- 6AP-HP, Sleep disorders unit, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France.
- 7AP-HP, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France.
- 8CNRS, INSERM, Laboratoire d'Imagerie Biomédicale, LIB, Sorbonne University, Paris, France.
- 9Laboratoire SAMOVAR, Télécom SudParis, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Palaiseau, France.
- 10Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, PERFORM Centre, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
- 11Institut du Cerveau - ICM, Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne University, Paris, France. [email protected].
- 12Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, PERFORM Centre, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada. [email protected].
Abstract
The pathophysiology underlying Parkinson's disease (PD) speech impairments and its potential sex differences remain unclear. We investigated sex-specific alterations in speech and striato-cortical networks in 104 patients with early PD (68M/36F), and 44 healthy controls (23M/21F), using quantitative speech markers and multimodal neuroimaging. Speech features related to prosody, phonation, articulation, fluency, and rhythm, were extracted from voice recordings; striatal dopaminergic loss was quantified using DaT-SPECT, and functional connectivity between striatal and cortical language networks was analyzed with resting-state fMRI. Results showed that PD-related speech impairments were more pronounced in males. Functional connectivity was globally reduced in PD, but female patients exhibited higher caudate-cortical connectivity. In males, speech deficits were associated with both dopaminergic loss and connectivity disruption, whereas in females, only connectivity changes were involved. These findings revealed sex-specific pathophysiological mechanisms in early PD speech disorders, emphasizing the need for sex-stratified approaches in research and clinical practice.
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BibTeX
@article{rogers2026striatal,
title = {{Striatal network dysfunction underlying speech impairment in early Parkinson's disease.}},
author = {Caitlin Paige Rogers and Sandy Mournet and Cécile Gallea and Emma Biondetti and Graziella Mangone and Sara Sambin and Lydia Chougar and Nicolas Villain and Rahul Gaurav and Isabelle Arnulf and Marie-Odile Habert and Dijana Petrovska-Delacrétaz and Jean-Christophe Corvol and Habib Benali and Marie Vidailhet and Stéphane Lehéricy and Laetitia Jeancolas},
journal = {NPJ Parkinson's disease},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41531-026-01509-2},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42875444},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Striatal network dysfunction underlying speech impairment in early Parkinson's disease.
AU - Caitlin Paige Rogers
AU - Sandy Mournet
AU - Cécile Gallea
AU - Emma Biondetti
AU - Graziella Mangone
AU - Sara Sambin
AU - Lydia Chougar
AU - Nicolas Villain
AU - Rahul Gaurav
AU - Isabelle Arnulf
AU - Marie-Odile Habert
AU - Dijana Petrovska-Delacrétaz
AU - Jean-Christophe Corvol
AU - Habib Benali
AU - Marie Vidailhet
AU - Stéphane Lehéricy
AU - Laetitia Jeancolas
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
JO - NPJ Parkinson's disease
DO - 10.1038/s41531-026-01509-2
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42875444
AB - The pathophysiology underlying Parkinson's disease (PD) speech impairments and its potential sex differences remain unclear. We investigated sex-specific alterations in speech and striato-cortical networks in 104 patients with early PD (68M/36F), and 44 healthy controls (23M/21F), using quantitative speech markers and multimodal neuroimaging. Speech features related to prosody, phonation, articulation, fluency, and rhythm, were extracted from voice recordings; striatal dopaminergic loss was quantified using DaT-SPECT, and functional connectivity between striatal and cortical language networks was analyzed with resting-state fMRI. Results showed that PD-related speech impairments were more pronounced in males. Functional connectivity was globally reduced in PD, but female patients exhibited higher caudate-cortical connectivity. In males, speech deficits were associated with both dopaminergic loss and connectivity disruption, whereas in females, only connectivity changes were involved. These findings revealed sex-specific pathophysiological mechanisms in early PD speech disorders, emphasizing the need for sex-stratified approaches in research and clinical practice.
SN - 2373-8057
ER -