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Classical eyeblink conditioning in Parkinson's disease
Author(s) -
Daum Irene,
Schugens Markus M.,
Breitenstein Caterina,
Topka Helge,
Spieker Sybille
Publication year - 1996
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.870110608
Subject(s) - eyeblink conditioning , motor learning , psychology , neuroscience , parkinson's disease , facilitation , classical conditioning , conditioning , brainstem , audiology , disease , medicine , statistics , mathematics
Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) show impairments of a range of motor learning tasks, including tracking or serial reaction time task learning. Our study investigated whether such deficits would also be seen on a simple type of motor learning, classic conditioning of the eyeblink response. Medicated and unmediated patients with PD showed intact unconditioned eyeblink responses and significant learning across acquisition; the learning rates did not differ from those of healthy control subjects. The overall frequency of conditioned responses was significantly higher in the medicated patients with PD relative to control subjects, and there was also some evidence of facilitation in the unmedicated patients with PD. Conditioning of electrodermal and electrocortical responses was comparable in all groups. The findings are discussed in terms of enhanced excitability of brainstem pathways in PD and of the involvement of different neuronal circuits in different types of motor learning.