Related Experiment Videos
Working memory in medicated patients with Parkinson's disease: the central executive seems to work
N Fournet1, O Moreaud, J L Roulin
1Service Neurologie et Neuropsychologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Grenoble, France.
Objective:
To determine whether a deficit of the central executive can explain the attentional deficits of patients with Parkinson's disease.
Methods:
Fifteen patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and 15 controls were given a dual task paradigm minimising motor demands and combining verbal, visual, or spatial span with two conditions of articulatory suppression.
Results:
Although the spans were systematically lower in medicated parkinsonian patients than in controls, suggesting a decrease of central processing resources, there was no direct evidence for a deficit of the central executive.
Conclusions:
A deficit of the central executive either is not an inevitable feature of the disease, or is dependent on the nature of task (visuomotor v cognitive), or is corrected by dopaminergic medication.