A possible role of the striatum in linear and nonlinear category learning: evidence from patients with Huntington's disease.
Linear and nonlinear categorization rule learning was examined in patients with Huntington's disease (HD) and a group of controls using the perceptual categorization task. Participants learned to categorize simple line stimuli into 1 of 2 categories over 600 trials. In addition to traditional measures of accuracy, quantitative model-based analyses were applied to each participant's data to characterize better the nature of any observed deficits. In the linear rule condition, HD patients displayed an early-training deficit relative to controls, whereas later in training the HD patients were not statistically different from controls. In the nonlinear rule condition, HD patients displayed both an early- and late-training deficit. The quantitative model-based analyses revealed that the HD patients' deficits in the linear condition were due to an impairment in learning the experimenter-defined rule and not in applying a learned rule inconsistently. In the nonlinear condition, in contrast, the HD patients' deficits were due to an impairment in learning the experimenter-defined rule and in applying a learned rule inconsistently. Overall, these results suggest that HD can result in a deficit in learning both linear and nonlinear categorization rules.
Filoteo
J V
JV
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, USA. vfiloteo@ucsd.edu
Maddox
W T
WT
Davis
J D
JD
D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008959:Models, Neurological; D017072:Neostriatum; D012720:Severity of Illness Index