Category learning deficits in Parkinson's disease

TitleCategory learning deficits in Parkinson's disease
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2003
AuthorsF Ashby, G., Noble S., J Filoteo V., Waldron E. M., & Ell S. W.
JournalNeuropsychology
Volume17
Issue1
Pagination115-24
Date Published2003 Jan
ISSN0894-4105
KeywordsAged, Color Perception, Concept Formation, Decision Making, Discrimination Learning, Dopamine, Female, Frontal Lobe, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Neurologic Examination, Neuropsychological Tests, Parkinson Disease, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Prefrontal Cortex, Problem Solving, Substantia Nigra, Ventral Tegmental Area
Abstract

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.

Alternate JournalNeuropsychology
PubMed ID12597080