title: Human ballistic arm abduction movements: effects of L-dopa treatment in Parkinson's disease.
abstract: In patients with Parkinson's disease who had never previously been treated with any antiparkinsonism drug, we studied the effects of L-dopa on ballistic arm abduction movement in a step-tracking task. L-Dopa treatment increased the mean velocity of the initial movement towards the target without loss of accuracy and with improved motor performance under open-loop conditions. Performance also improved in motor tasks with expected perturbation. EMG patterns of arm abduction movements showed abnormal features in untreated patients and improved after L-dopa treatment.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001132:Arm; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007980:Levodopa / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009068:Movement; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology
chemical_list: D007980:Levodopa