Effort-Based Decision-Making for Exercise in People with Parkinson's Disease

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Behavioral Science
• Movement Disorders

Background:

• People with Parkinson's disease (PwPD) exhibit reduced physical activity compared to peers.
• Non-motor symptoms, particularly diminished motivation linked to the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway, may impede exercise decision-making.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare effort-based decision-making for physical exertion between PwPD and healthy controls.
• To investigate the relationship between effort-based decisions for exercise and motor task performance.
• To assess the impact of motivational components on physical effort decisions in PwPD.

Main Methods:

• An effort-based decision-making paradigm was employed, involving a discrete motor task (button pressing) and a continuous exercise task (cycling).
• Participants included 32 PwPD and 23 healthy controls.
• Motivation was assessed using the Apathy Scale and the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale-Anticipatory Pleasure scale.

Main Results:

• Parkinson's disease status did not alter decisions for either physical effort task.
• Decisions for the discrete motor and continuous exercise tasks were moderately correlated within each group.
• Anticipation of pleasure and apathy predicted effort-based decisions in PwPD, but not in healthy controls.

Conclusions:

• PwPD demonstrated comparable responses to effort and reward valuations versus controls.
• Decision consistency was observed across different physical effort tasks.
• Anticipation of pleasure and reduced apathy emerged as key predictors for exercise decisions in PwPD, highlighting potential avenues for enhancing exercise engagement.