Changes in electrophysiological aperiodic activity during cognitive control in Parkinson’s disease

Abstract Cognitive symptoms in Parkinson’s disease (PD) are common and can significantly affect patients’ quality of life. Therefore, there is an urgent clinical need to identify a signature derived from behavioral and/or neuroimaging indicators that could predict which patients are at increased risk for early and rapid cognitive decline. Recently, converging evidence identified electroencephalogram (EEG) aperiodic activity as meaningful physiological information associated with age, development, cognitive and perceptual states or pathologies. In this study, we aimed to investigate aperiodic activity in PD during cognitive control and characterize its possible association with behavior. Here, we recorded high-density EEG (HD-EEG) in 30 healthy controls and 30 PD patients during a Simon task. We analyzed task-related behavioral data in the context of the activation-suppression model and extracted aperiodic parameters (offset, exponent) at both scalp and source levels. Our results showed behavioral alterations of cognitive control as well as higher offsets in patients in the parieto-occipital areas, suggesting increased excitability in PD. A small congruence effect on aperiodic parameters in pre- and post-central brain areas was also found, possibly associated with task execution. Significant differences in aperiodic parameters between the resting state, pre- and post-stimulus phases all across the scalp and cortex confirmed that the observed changes in aperiodic activity are linked to task execution. No correlation was found between aperiodic activity and behavior or clinical features. Our findings provide evidence that EEG aperiodic activity in PD is characterized by greater offsets, and that aperiodic parameters differ depending on arousal state. However, our results do not support the hypothesis that the behavior-related differences observed in PD are related to aperiodic changes. Overall, this study highlights the importance of considering aperiodic activity contributions in brain disorders and further investigating the relationship between aperiodic activity and behavior.