Socioenvironmental Factors are Associated With Dopamine Transporter Availability in Healthy Individuals but not in Parkinson's Disease.

Social factors can influence the brain's dopaminergic function. This study investigated the relationship between socioenvironmental factors and dopamine transporter (DaT) availability in healthy individuals (n = 74) and those with Parkinson's disease (PD) (n = 240). All single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) DaT data and clinical data used in this study were obtained from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) dataset. Socioenvironmental data was obtained from Social Explorer analyses of the American Community Survey (2014-2018) using the residential ZIP codes of the subjects available in the PPMI dataset. Participants resided in 302 ZIP code tabulation areas across 38 U.S. states. In healthy individuals The study findings suggest that socioenvironmental factors, such as median household income, education level, and poverty rate, are significantly associated with DaT availability in the caudate of healthy individuals but not in those with PD. This indicates that PD might disrupt the connection between the social environment and dopaminergic function. These results underscore the importance of considering socioenvironmental variables when studying dopaminergic function in the human brain.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.