Slowing of high-speed memory scanning in Parkinson's disease is related to the severity of parkinsonian motor symptoms.
High-speed memory scanning (Sternberg paradigm) was tested in a collective of 20 parkinsonian patients (10 newly diagnosed, untreated patients, duration of the disease 0.5-3.8, mean 1.5 years; 10 levodopa-treated patients, duration of the disease 4.2 to 11, mean 7.6 years). The levodopa-treated patients stopped taking levodopa before the test. There was a tendency towards retarded memory scanning in the patients' collective compared with 20 healthy controls with similar ages and verbal IQs (p = 0.076, Mann-Whitney U test). The mental slowing correlated significantly with bradykinesia and the sum-score of the Columbia University Parkinson Rating Scale (p = 0.021 and 0.019; Spearman rank correlation). Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA revealed a significant mental slowing in the subgroup of patients with Parkinson's disease for greater than 4 years compared with the newly diagnosed patients and the controls (H = 8.54; p = 0.019 and 0.006, Mann-Whitney U test). The findings suggest a mental slowing in Parkinson's disease, which is associated with the progression of parkinsonian motor symptoms and not with depression.
Ransmayr
G
G
University Clinic of Neurology, University of Innsbruck, Austria.
Bitschnau
W
W
Schmidhuber-Eiler
B
B
Berger
W
W
Karamat
E
E
Poewe
W
W
Kemmler
G W
GW
D000368:Aged; D003863:Depression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D007980:Levodopa / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D009435:Synaptic Transmission
D007980:Levodopa