title: Alexithymia and apathy in Parkinson's disease: neurocognitive correlates.
abstract: Non-motor symptoms such as neuropsychiatric and cognitive dysfunction have been found to be common in Parkinson's disease (PD) but the relation between such symptoms is poorly understood. We focused on alexithymia, an impairment of affective and cognitive emotional processing, as there is evidence for its interaction with cognition in other disorders. Twenty-two non-demented PD patients and 22 matched normal control adults (NC) were administered rating scales assessing neuropsychiatric status, including alexithymia, apathy, and depression, and a series of neuropsychological tests. As expected, PD patients showed more alexithymia than NC, and there was a significant association between alexithymia and disease stage. Alexithymia was associated with performance on non-verbally mediated measures of executive and visuospatial function, but not on verbally mediated tasks. By contrast, there was no correlation between cognition and ratings of either depression or apathy. Our findings demonstrate a distinct association of alexithymia with non-verbal cognition in PD, implicating right hemisphere processes, and differentiate between alexithymia and other neuropsychiatric symptoms in regard to PD cognition.
authors.affiliation: Psychology Research, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA Department of Psychology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Yelena
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bogdanova
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cronin-Golomb
mesh_terms: D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D057565:Apathy; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology; D003863:Depression / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales