Effects of Parkinson's disease and dopamine on digit span measures of working memory.

ABSTRACT:

Rationale

Parkinson's disease (PD) impairs working memory (WM)-the ability to maintain items in memory for short periods of time and manipulate them. There is conflicting evidence on the nature of the deficits caused by the disease, and the potential beneficial and detrimental effects of dopaminergic medication on different WM processes.

Objectives

We hypothesised that PD impairs both maintenance and manipulation of items in WM and dopaminergic medications improve this in PD patients but impair it in healthy older adults.

Methods

We tested 68 PD patients ON and OFF their dopaminergic medication, 83 healthy age-matched controls, and 30 healthy older adults after placebo and levodopa administration. We used the digit span, a WM test with three components (forwards, back

SUBMITTER: Grogan JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6267128 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature