Impulse control disorders in Parkinson's disease versus in healthy controls: A different predictive model

Impulse control disorders ( ICD s), including compulsive gambling, buying, sexual behaviour and eating, are not only a severe disorder that can affect the general, non‐clinical population, but also a serious, increasingly recognized psychiatric complication in Parkinson's disease ( PD ). Previous research detected some risk factors for their occurrence in PD patients and in the general population, including impulsivity. However, impulsivity is a multidimensional construct that comprises several aspects, including reflection impulsivity and delay discounting. The present work assessed different facets of impulsivity in both PD patients and in the healthy controls ( HC s) to examine whether they scored differently, and if the occurrence of ICD s in PD patients and in the HC s was predicted by different aspects of impulsivity. The results showed that ICD s in PD patients were predicted by a strong preference for immediate rewards, whereas ICD s in the HC s were predicted by a deficient reflective ability. The present findings may help clinicians in the early identification of PD patients who could develop ICD s by simply assessing their impulsivity in terms of delay discounting. Furthermore, this work contributed to identify another risk factor for ICD s in the non‐clinical population.