Category Learning Deficits in Parkinson's Disease

Sixteen patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), 15 older controls (OCs), and 109 younger controls (YCs) were compared in 2 category-learning tasks. Participants attempted to assign colored geometric figures to 1 of 2 categories. In rule-based tasks, category membership was defined by an explici...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuropsychology 2003-01, Vol.17 (1), p.115-124
Main Authors: Ashby, F. Gregory, Noble, Sharon, Filoteo, J. Vincent, Waldron, Elliott M, Ell, Shawn W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Age Differences
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
Classification (Cognitive Process)
Color Perception - physiology
Concept Formation - physiology
Decision Making - physiology
Degenerative and inherited degenerative diseases of the nervous system. Leukodystrophies. Prion diseases
Discrimination Learning - physiology
Dopamine - physiology
Female
Frontal Lobe - physiopathology
Gyrus Cinguli - physiopathology
Human
Humans
Learning Ability
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Neurologic Examination
Neurology
Neuropsychological Tests
Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology
Parkinson Disease - diagnosis
Parkinson Disease - physiopathology
Parkinson Disease - psychology
Parkinson's Disease
Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology
Prefrontal Cortex - physiopathology
Problem Solving - physiology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Substantia Nigra - physiopathology
Ventral Tegmental Area - physiopathology
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Summary:Sixteen patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), 15 older controls (OCs), and 109 younger controls (YCs) were compared in 2 category-learning tasks. Participants attempted to assign colored geometric figures to 1 of 2 categories. In rule-based tasks, category membership was defined by an explicit rule that was easy to verbalize, whereas in information-integration tasks, there was no salient verbal rule and accuracy was maximized only if information from 3 stimulus components was integrated at some predecisional stage. The YCs performed the best on both tasks. The PD patients were highly impaired compared with the OCs, in the rule-based categorization task but were not different from the OCs in the information-integration task. These results support the hypothesis that learning in these 2 tasks is mediated by functionally separate systems.
ISSN:0894-4105
1931-1559
DOI:10.1037/0894-4105.17.1.115