Researchers analyzing brain-imaging and treatment data from hundreds of people report that Parkinson’s disease is associated with abnormal connectivity involving the somato-cognitive action network (SCAN), a motor-cortex network described in 2023. In a small trial, stimulation aimed at this network produced a higher response rate than stimulation of nearby motor areas, raising the possibility of more targeted noninvasive treatments.
Parkinson’s disease affects more than 1 million people in the United States and more than 10 million worldwide, and it can involve symptoms beyond tremor and slowness of movement, including sleep and thinking problems. Current therapies—such as medications and deep brain stimulation—can improve symptoms but do not cure the disease.
In a study published February 4, 2026, in Nature, scientists from Changping Laboratory in China and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reported evidence that Parkinson’s involves abnormal coupling between brain regions commonly implicated in the disease and the somato-cognitive action network (SCAN), a motor-cortex network first described in 2023. SCAN is proposed to help translate planned actions into movement while monitoring how those actions unfold, potentially linking movement control with broader cognitive and bodily-state regulation. (sciencedaily.com)
The researchers analyzed brain data from 863 people with Parkinson’s disease studied across multiple established treatment approaches—including medication, deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation and focused ultrasound stimulation—and compared patterns to those seen in healthy volunteers and in other movement disorders, such as essential tremor. They reported that Parkinson’s-related regions showed stronger connectivity to SCAN than to other motor regions, and that this heightened SCAN connectivity was not observed in several other movement disorders. Treatments associated with symptom improvement were also associated with reductions in SCAN hyperconnectivity toward levels seen in healthy volunteers. (natureasia.com)
“This work demonstrates that Parkinson’s is a SCAN disorder, and the data strongly suggest that if you target the SCAN in a personalized, precise manner you can treat Parkinson’s more successfully than was previously possible,” said co-author Nico U. F. Dosenbach, a neurologist at Washington University School of Medicine. He added that changing SCAN activity “could slow or reverse the progression of the disease,” though the study itself emphasizes that further work is needed to determine how best to translate these findings into clinical care. (sciencedaily.com)
In a small, short-term transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) comparison described in the report, 18 people who received stimulation targeted to SCAN showed a higher response rate after two weeks than participants who received stimulation directed at adjacent motor regions. The authors and Nature’s press material characterized this as roughly a doubling of efficacy when targeting SCAN rather than nearby motor areas. (natureasia.com)
Senior author Hesheng Liu said the findings point to Parkinson’s as a disorder involving broader network-level dysfunction rather than only the basal ganglia and classic motor pathways. The paper and accompanying materials argue that identifying a network signature could help guide future “brain-based” therapies and potentially support earlier, non-surgical interventions, but they caution that additional research is needed to link SCAN abnormalities to specific symptoms and to validate treatment strategies in larger clinical trials. (natureasia.com)
Separately, Dosenbach has said he plans clinical trials through Turing Medical, a Washington University–linked startup he co-founded, including testing noninvasive surface electrode approaches for gait dysfunction and exploring low-intensity focused ultrasound as another way to modulate SCAN activity. (medicalxpress.com)
