Deep Brain Stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus Improves Lexical Switching in Parkinsons Disease Patients.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Reduced verbal fluency (VF) has been reported in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), especially those treated by Deep Brain Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN DBS). To delineate the nature of this dysfunction we aimed at identifying the particular VF-related operations modified by STN DBS.

Method

Eleven PD patients performed VF tasks in their STN DBS ON and OFF condition. To differentiate VF-components modulated by the stimulation, a temporal cluster analysis was performed, separating production spurts (i.e., 'clusters' as correlates of automatic activation spread within lexical fields) from slower cluster transitions (i.e., 'switches' reflecting set-shifting towards new lexical fields). The results were compared to those of eleven healthy control subj

SUBMITTER: Vonberg I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5004923 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature