Parkinson’s disease as a somato-cognitive action network disorder

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an incurable neurological disorder that often begins insidiously with sleep disturbances and somatic symptoms, progressing to whole-body motor and cognitive symptoms1–5. Dysfunction of the somato-cognitive action network (SCAN)—which is thought to control action execution6,7 by coordinating arousal, organ physiology and whole-body motor plans with behavioural motivation—is a potential contributor to the diverse clinical manifestations of PD. To investigate the role of the SCAN in PD pathophysiology and treatments (medications, deep-brain stimulation (DBS), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and MRI-guided focused ultrasound stimulation (MRgFUS)), we built a large (n = 863),…