Quantitative EEG in Parkinson’s disease: when REM sleep behavior disorder onset really matters

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) body-first subtype is characterized by prodromal autonomic symptoms and REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), symmetric dopaminergic degeneration, and increased risk of dementia. On the other hand, the PD brain-first subtype has fewer non-motor symptoms and a milder motor phenotype. The temporal relationship between RBD onset and motor symptoms onset may differentiate these two subtypes. We aimed to investigate electrocortical differences between brain-first and body-first PD patients. PD patients with an available routinely collected EEG were retrospectively selected. RBD was diagnosed using the RBD screening questionnaire (≥ 6). According to the onset of RBD patients were classified into PD-RBDpre (RBD onset before motor symptoms) and PD-RBDpost (RBD onset after motor symptoms). Patients without RBD were classified as PD-RBD-. Presence of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) was diagnosed according to the MDS criteria. EEG Spectral analysis was performed in resting state by computing the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of site-specific signal epochs for the common frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha, beta). Thirty-eight PD-RBD-, 14 PD-RBDpre and 31 PD-RBDpost patients were recruited. Comparing both global and site-specific absolute values, we found a significant trend toward beta band reduction going from PD-RBD-, PD-RBDpost and PD-RBDpre. No significant differences were found between PD-RBDpost and PD-RBD- patients. PD-RBDpre patients may represent a different subset of patients as compared to patients without RBD, while patients with later onset have intermediate EEG spectral features. Quantitative EEG may provide new hints in PD subtyping.