Weekly dance training over eight months reduces depression and correlates with fMRI brain signals in subcallosal cingulate gyrus (SCG) for people with Parkinson’s Disease: An observational study

Depression affects 280 million people globally and is considered a prodromal feature for increasingly prevalent neurodegenerative conditions including Parkinson’s disease (PD). With age-related neurodegeneration on the rise, it’s important to consider non-invasive, inexpensive interventions such as dance. Dance has emerged as a complementary treatment that may support adaptive neuroplasticity while diminishing motor and non-motor symptoms including depression. Although dance has been shown to impact brain structures and functions with improvements in motor and psychological symptoms, the neural mechanisms underlying depression/mood remain elusive. Our observational study tracks the relationship between depression scores and functional neuroimaging measures for subgenual cingulate gyrus (SCG). While learning choreography over an 8-month period, 34 dancers [23 people with PD] completed GDS questionnaires before and after their community dance classes. Seventeen of these dancers had BOLD fMRI scans conducted using learning-related protocols to examine underlying neural mechanisms for moving to music over 4 times points of learning. A significant decrease in depression scores correlated with a reduced BOLD signal from SCG, a putative node in the neural network of depression. Conclusions: This is the first study to clearly find a correlation with a neural substrate involved in mood changes as a function of dance for PD. Not only do the results contribute to understanding neural mechanisms involved in adaptive plasticity with a learning task, but they also uncover reduced activity within SCG during longitudinal therapeutic dance interventions. These results are especially illuminating since SCG is a controversial target in deep brain stimulation (DBS) used in the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD).