title: Voluntary movements and event-related potentials in Parkinsonians (stages 1-2).
abstract: The temporal analysis of goal-directed movements has revealed that the delay of movement initiation in Parkinsonians might be decreased or abolished by altering the preparatory set and increasing the motivation level of patients. Averaged event-related potentials (ERPs) during different psychomotor reactions to light stimuli, ignore condition and difference waves between attend (reactions) and ignore conditions were analyzed in 19 Parkinsonian patients (stages 1-2) and 12 healthy subjects. A deceleration of psychomotor reactions in the patients was found to be accompanied by a decrease in ERPs, especially in frontal recording. This decrease was affected by an altered pre-stimulus preparatory set in the patients. The decrease of endogenous ERPs (difference waves) was associated to a greater extent with the motor acts than with cognitive operations. The deceleration of the voluntary movements in Parkinsonism is assumed to be connected with 'deficit' of the frontal activation due to a dysfunction of the basal ganglia.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of the Higher Nervous Activity, Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Suvorov
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Krylov
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Voilokova
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D018476:Hypokinesia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012718:Set, Psychology; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D014836:Volition / Q000502:physiology