θ, β But not α-band EEG connectivity has implications for dual task performance in Parkinson’s disease

People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have difficulty performing dual tasks or simultaneous movements, even if the same movements can be easily performed individually. This has particular significance clinically, as for example falling injuries may occur if care is not taken to perform tasks one at a time. We investigated whether this difficultyx results from impaired dopamine-modulated connectivity. We recorded the EEG in PD subjects off and on l-dopa medication performing simultaneous and unimanual tracking tasks. To deal with the inherent non-stationarity of the EEG during motor tasks, we segmented the data into task-related sections based on transient synchronisation between independent components of the data, before assessing the mutual information (MI) between each EEG channel pair. In both tasks, PD subjects off-medication demonstrated enhanced fronto-central and decreased occipital synchronisation within theta and alpha bands, and widespread increased beta-band synchronisation, compared to controls. Synchronisation changes in theta and beta bands were partially normalised by l-dopa, but l-dopa had relatively little effect on alpha band synchronisation. When comparing simultaneous movements to unimanual tracking, PD subjects off-medication demonstrated synchronisation changes within theta and beta bands, however alpha connectivity was largely unchanged. These results suggest that downstream influences of impaired basal ganglia function on cortico-cortical connectivity may result in difficulties with dual task performance in PD.