A trade-off between feedback-based learning and episodic memory for feedback events: evidence from Parkinson's...

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by a loss of dopaminergic projections to the striatum, leading to both motor and cognitive impairments. The cognitive impairments are relatively selective and include deficits in incremental learning from trial-by-trial feedback, while other forms of learning, such as hippocampal-dependent episodic memory, remain intact. Interestingly, it has been suggested that the striatum and the hippocampus compete during learning, leading to the intriguing prediction that the striatal disruption in PD could lead to enhanced performance on tasks that depend on the hippocampus. We tested this prediction by simultaneously assessing incremental learning and episodic memory for trial-unique feedback events, within a single task, in patients with PD. Further, in order to modulate the engagement of the striatum versus the hippocampus, we manipulated the timing of feedback during learning, building on prior results showing that delaying feedback by a few seconds shifts learning to depend on the hippocampus instead of the striatum. We found that Parkinson's patients were impaired at learning from immediate feedback, but had enhanced episodic memory for those immediate feedback events. Thus, our results provide evidence for concurrent impaired and enhanced learning and memory functions within the same group of patients from a single task.