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Motor impulsivity in Parkinson disease: Associations with COMT and DRD 2 polymorphisms
Author(s) -
Ziegler David A.,
Ashourian Paymon,
Wonderlick Julien S.,
Sarokhan Alison K.,
Prelec Drazen,
Scherzer Clemens R.,
Corkin Suzanne
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/sjop.12113
Subject(s) - impulsivity , dopaminergic , dopamine , psychology , parkinson's disease , disease , impulse control disorder , neuroscience , allele , psychiatry , medicine , genetics , gene , biology , pathological
Parkinson disease ( PD ) is an age‐related degenerative disease of the brain, characterized by motor, cognitive, and psychiatric symptoms. Neurologists and neuroscientists now understand that several symptoms of the disease, including hallucinations and impulse control behaviors, stem from the dopaminergic medications used to control the motor aspects of PD . Converging evidence from animals and humans suggests that individual differences in the genes that affect the dopamine system influence the response of PD patients to dopaminergic medication. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that patients taking dopamine replacement therapy who carry candidate alleles that increase dopamine signaling, exhibit greater amounts of motor impulsivity. We examined the relation between inhibitory ability (measured by the Stop Signal Task) and polymorphisms of COMT Val158Met and DRD 2 C957T in patients with idiopathic PD . On the Stop Signal Task, carriers of COMT Val/Met and Met/Met genotypes were more impulsive than Val/Val carriers, but we did not find a link between DRD 2 polymorphisms and inhibitory ability. These results support the hypothesis that the Met allele of COMT confers an increased risk for behavioral impulsivity in PD patients, whereas DRD 2 polymorphisms appear to be less important in determining whether PD patients exhibit a dopamine overdose in the form of motor impulsivity.