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Antisaccades and executive dysfunction in early drug‐naive Parkinson's disease: The discovery study
Author(s) -
Antoniades Chrystalina A.,
Demeyere Nele,
Kennard Christopher,
Humphreys Glyn W.,
Hu Michele T.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
movement disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.352
H-Index - 198
eISSN - 1531-8257
pISSN - 0885-3185
DOI - 10.1002/mds.26134
Subject(s) - parkinson's disease , drug naïve , saccadic masking , cognition , antisaccade task , psychology , task (project management) , audiology , disease , cognitive impairment , executive functions , executive dysfunction , cognitive test , neuroscience , eye movement , medicine , cognitive psychology , neuropsychology , psychiatry , drug , management , economics
Background Cognitive impairment is well recognized in Parkinson's disease (PD), but when it begins to develop is unclear. The aim of this study was to identify early signs of cognitive impairment along with abnormalities in saccadic behavior in newly diagnosed unmedicated PD patients. Methods Nineteen drug‐naive PD patients and 20 controls were examined using a battery of tests, including an antisaccade task, phonemic and semantic verbal fluencies, and a switching and rule finding task. Results With simple tasks, no differences were found between the two groups. However, cognitive performance of the two groups diverged with more complex tasks, occurring independently of PD‐related motor impairment. Patients exhibited higher antisaccadic error rates and switch costs in the task switching test, and performed significantly worse in the rule finding task. Conclusions Certain cognitive domains and saccadic parameters are already significantly impoverished in newly diagnosed Parkinson's patients, even before the initiation of medication. © 2015 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society