Impaired visuospatial transformation but intact sequence processing in Parkinson disease
E Charles Leek1, Julie H Kerai, Stephen J Johnston
1*Wolfson Centre for Clinical and Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology ‡School of Medical Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, United Kingdom †Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom.
Summary
Visuospatial deficits in Parkinson disease (PD) are not due to general sequencing problems. Instead, these impairments stem from issues with spatial transformation routines within specific brain pathways.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neurology
Background:
- Parkinson disease (PD) is linked to visuospatial processing deficits.
- The underlying mechanisms of these visuospatial impairments in PD are not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if visuospatial deficits in Parkinson disease (PD) arise from a general, nonspatial impairment in sequencing mental operations.
- To differentiate between domain-general sequencing deficits and specific visuospatial processing issues in PD.
Main Methods:
- A visuospatial grid navigation task assessing sequential spatial transformations was administered to 13 PD patients and 20 controls.
- A serial number subtraction task was used to evaluate nonvisuospatial sequencing abilities.
- Tasks were matched for structure and difficulty to ensure comparability.
Main Results:
- Patients with Parkinson disease (PD) demonstrated significant impairment on the visuospatial navigation task.
- No significant differences were observed between PD patients and controls on the nonvisuospatial serial number subtraction task.
- These results indicate that visuospatial deficits in PD are not caused by a general sequencing impairment.
Conclusions:
- Visuospatial deficits in Parkinson disease (PD) likely result from impairments in spatial transformation routines essential for mapping spatial locations.
- These spatial transformation deficits are associated with dopaminergic pathway dysfunction, involving the basal ganglia, prefrontal cortex, supplementary motor area, and parietal cortex.
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