Clinical characteristics of the patients with Parkinson’s disease.

<p>Clinical characteristics of the patients with Parkinson’s disease.</p

¹¹C-raclopride binding potential (RAC-BP) of the three ROI within the right striatum in healthy subjects (HS) and patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

<p>¹¹C-raclopride binding potential (RAC-BP) of the three ROI within the right striatum in healthy subjects (HS) and patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).</p

Baseline characteristics between healthy subjects and patients with Parkinson’s disease.

<p>Baseline characteristics between healthy subjects and patients with Parkinson’s disease.</p

Effect of dopaminergic medication on PAS-induced modulation of the MEP amplitude with PD-on and-off.

<p>In PD patients, the average MEP amplitude in the right APB was significantly elevated after dopaminergic medication (*<i>P</i><0.05).</p

Patient demographic and clinical details.

<p>Patient demographic and clinical details.</p

Mean pinching force changes in initial skill-training on Day 1 and mean acceleration changes in prepractice on Day 2.

<p>(A) Changes of the mean pinching force in the initial skill training between baseline (before session 1) and post session 3. Y axis indicates mean pinching force (kg). Error bars show the SD. *<i>P</i><0.05. (B) Mean accelerations in the motor prepractice between block 1 and block 4. Y axis indicates mean accelerations (cm/s²). Error bars show the SEM. N.S. not significant.</p

Experimental procedures.

<p>(A) Time schedule of experiments. Subjects were scanned for evaluating striatal dopamine levels using ¹¹C-raclopride PET on Day 1 (initial skill-training condition) and Day 2 (acquired condition). (B) ¹¹C-raclopride PET scanning. ¹¹C-raclopride (555 MBq) was injected into the right vein just before the emission data was acquired. They practiced rapid contraction of their left thumb via visual feedback during PET scanning. (C) Display seen by subjects during motor practice. Three coloured horizontal lines were graphically presented to help subjects understand the quality of their performance: peak acceleration of the present movement (blue), mean peak acceleration of all previous trials within a block (green) and maximum peak acceleration of all previous trials within a block (red).</p

¹¹C-raclopride BP changes in sub-regions of the striatum between the two conditions.

<p>Left panel shows the grass brain map of the voxel-based analysis of ¹¹C-raclopride BP change (upper figure: initial skill-training condition < acquired condition and lower figure: acquired condition < initial skill-training condition). Right panel shows coronal and axial sections of the statistical parametric map of ¹¹C-raclopride BP change in the initial skill-training condition versus acquired condition overlaying the MRI T1 image in stereotaxic space. Right side image corresponds to right side brain. The displayed cluster shows the significant area of decreased ¹¹C-raclopride BP in the right antero-dorsal and lateral part of the putamen. The peak coordinate in the right putamen was located at X = 30, Y = 4, Z = 12. No BP change was observed in the left putamen.</p