title: Correlation of Visuospatial Ability and EEG Slowing in Patients with Parkinson's Disease.
abstract: Background.Visuospatial dysfunction is among the first cognitive symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) and is often predictive for PD-dementia. Furthermore, cognitive status in PD-patients correlates with quantitative EEG. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the correlation between EEG slowing and visuospatial ability in nondemented PD-patients.Methods.Fifty-seven nondemented PD-patients (17 females/40 males) were evaluated with a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery and a high-resolution 256-channel EEG was recorded. A median split was performed for each cognitive test dividing the patients sample into either a normal or lower performance group. The electrodes were split into five areas: frontal, central, temporal, parietal, and occipital. A linear mixed effects model (LME) was used for correlational analyses and to control for confounding factors.Results.Subsequently, for the lower performance, LME analysis showed a significant positive correlation between ROCF score and parietal alpha/theta ratio (b= .59,p= .012) and occipital alpha/theta ratio (b= 0.50,p= .030). No correlations were found in the group of patients with normal visuospatial abilities.Conclusion.We conclude that a reduction of the parietal alpha/theta ratio is related to visuospatial impairments in PD-patients. These findings indicate that visuospatial impairment in PD-patients could be influenced by parietal dysfunction.
authors.affiliation: Division of Molecular and Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuropsychology and Behavioural Neurology Unit, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6368-6367
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Eichelberger
authors.affiliation: Division of Molecular and Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuropsychology and Behavioural Neurology Unit, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Pasquale
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3347-5187
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Calabrese
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Hospital of the University of Basel, Petersgraben 4, 4031 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Antonia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Hospital of the University of Basel, Petersgraben 4, 4031 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Menorca
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chaturvedi
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Hospital of the University of Basel, Petersgraben 4, 4031 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hatz
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Hospital of the University of Basel, Petersgraben 4, 4031 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4059-8310
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fuhr
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Hospital of the University of Basel, Petersgraben 4, 4031 Basel, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Ute
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Gschwandtner