Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry logoLink to Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry
. 1988 Jun;51(6):757–766. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.51.6.757

Planning and spatial working memory in Parkinson's disease.

R G Morris 1, J J Downes 1, B J Sahakian 1, J L Evenden 1, A Heald 1, T W Robbins 1
PMCID: PMC1033144  PMID: 3404183

Abstract

The higher level cognitive function of planning was studied in a group of medicated Parkinson's disease patients and a group of matched control subjects, using a computerised version of Shallice's Tower of London task. Baseline measurement of the ability to execute a given plan of action, to generate low level strategies required for efficient searching, and spatial working memory capacity, all of which contribute to performance on the planning task, established that the Parkinson's disease group was unimpaired on any of these measures. On the Tower of London task, the Parkinson's disease group was also unimpaired in terms of the average number of moves required to solve a problem. However, a specific planning deficit was evident when "thinking" times were analysed, and this was after the confounding influence of motor initiation and execution times had been carefully extracted from total performance times. This finding is discussed in relation to putative functions of the frontal lobes and basal ganglia, and an attention-switching hypothesis is developed to account for it.

Full text

PDF
757

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Albert M. L., Feldman R. G., Willis A. L. The 'subcortical dementia' of progressive supranuclear palsy. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1974 Feb;37(2):121–130. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.37.2.121. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Asso D. W.A.I.S. scores in a group of Parkinson patients. Br J Psychiatry. 1969 May;115(522):555–556. doi: 10.1192/bjp.115.522.555. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Benecke R., Rothwell J. C., Dick J. P., Day B. L., Marsden C. D. Disturbance of sequential movements in patients with Parkinson's disease. Brain. 1987 Apr;110(Pt 2):361–379. doi: 10.1093/brain/110.2.361. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Bowen F. P., Kamienny R. S., Burns M. M., Yahr M. Parkinsonism: effects of levodopa treatment on concept formation. Neurology. 1975 Aug;25(8):701–704. doi: 10.1212/wnl.25.8.701. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Brozoski T. J., Brown R. M., Rosvold H. E., Goldman P. S. Cognitive deficit caused by regional depletion of dopamine in prefrontal cortex of rhesus monkey. Science. 1979 Aug 31;205(4409):929–932. doi: 10.1126/science.112679. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Cools A. R., van den Bercken J. H., Horstink M. W., van Spaendonck K. P., Berger H. J. Cognitive and motor shifting aptitude disorder in Parkinson's disease. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1984 May;47(5):443–453. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.47.5.443. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Delong M. R., Georgopoulos A. P., Crutcher M. D., Mitchell S. J., Richardson R. T., Alexander G. E. Functional organization of the basal ganglia: contributions of single-cell recording studies. Ciba Found Symp. 1984;107:64–82. doi: 10.1002/9780470720882.ch5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Evarts E. V., Teräväinen H., Calne D. B. Reaction time in Parkinson's disease. Brain. 1981 Mar;104(Pt 1):167–186. doi: 10.1093/brain/104.1.167. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Flowers K. A., Robertson C. The effect of Parkinson's disease on the ability to maintain a mental set. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1985 Jun;48(6):517–529. doi: 10.1136/jnnp.48.6.517. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Fuster J. M. The prefrontal cortex, mediator of cross-temporal contingencies. Hum Neurobiol. 1985;4(3):169–179. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Hietanen M., Teräväinen H. Cognitive performance in early Parkinson's disease. Acta Neurol Scand. 1986 Feb;73(2):151–159. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0404.1986.tb03257.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Hoehn M. M., Yahr M. D. Parkinsonism: onset, progression and mortality. Neurology. 1967 May;17(5):427–442. doi: 10.1212/wnl.17.5.427. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Lees A. J., Smith E. Cognitive deficits in the early stages of Parkinson's disease. Brain. 1983 Jun;106(Pt 2):257–270. doi: 10.1093/brain/106.2.257. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Marsden C. D. Which motor disorder in Parkinson's disease indicates the true motor function of the basal ganglia? Ciba Found Symp. 1984;107:225–241. doi: 10.1002/9780470720882.ch12. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Matthews C. G., Haaland K. Y. The effect of symptom duration on cognitive and motor performance in parkinsonism. Neurology. 1979 Jul;29(7):951–956. doi: 10.1212/wnl.29.7.951. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Milner B. Interhemispheric differences in the localization of psychological processes in man. Br Med Bull. 1971 Sep;27(3):272–277. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a070866. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Passingham R. E. Memory of monkeys (Macaca mulatta) with lesions in prefrontal cortex. Behav Neurosci. 1985 Feb;99(1):3–21. doi: 10.1037//0735-7044.99.1.3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Petrides M., Milner B. Deficits on subject-ordered tasks after frontal- and temporal-lobe lesions in man. Neuropsychologia. 1982;20(3):249–262. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(82)90100-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Rafal R. D., Posner M. I., Walker J. A., Friedrich F. J. Cognition and the basal ganglia. Separating mental and motor components of performance in Parkinson's disease. Brain. 1984 Dec;107(Pt 4):1083–1094. doi: 10.1093/brain/107.4.1083. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Rogers D. Bradyphrenia in parkinsonism: a historical review. Psychol Med. 1986 May;16(2):257–265. doi: 10.1017/s0033291700009077. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Rogers D., Lees A. J., Smith E., Trimble M., Stern G. M. Bradyphrenia in Parkinson's disease and psychomotor retardation in depressive illness. An experimental study. Brain. 1987 Jun;110(Pt 3):761–776. doi: 10.1093/brain/110.3.761. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. SCHWAB R. S., ENGLAND A. C., PETERSON E. Akinesia in Parkinson's disease. Neurology. 1959 Jan;9(1):65–72. doi: 10.1212/wnl.9.1.65. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Salthouse T. A., Somberg B. L. Isolating the age deficit in speeded performance. J Gerontol. 1982 Jan;37(1):59–63. doi: 10.1093/geronj/37.1.59. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Scatton B., Rouquier L., Javoy-Agid F., Agid Y. Dopamine deficiency in the cerebral cortex in Parkinson disease. Neurology. 1982 Sep;32(9):1039–1040. doi: 10.1212/wnl.32.9.1039. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Shallice T. Specific impairments of planning. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 1982 Jun 25;298(1089):199–209. doi: 10.1098/rstb.1982.0082. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Smirni P., Villardita C., Zappalà G. Influence of different paths on spatial memory performance in the Block-Tapping Test. J Clin Neuropsychol. 1983 Dec;5(4):355–359. doi: 10.1080/01688638308401184. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Taylor A. E., Saint-Cyr J. A., Lang A. E. Frontal lobe dysfunction in Parkinson's disease. The cortical focus of neostriatal outflow. Brain. 1986 Oct;109(Pt 5):845–883. doi: 10.1093/brain/109.5.845. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  28. Warburton J. W. Memory disturbance and the Parkinson syndrome. Br J Med Psychol. 1967 Jun;40(2):169–171. doi: 10.1111/j.2044-8341.1967.tb00566.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  29. Weber R. J., Burt D. B., Noll N. C. Attention switching between perception and memory. Mem Cognit. 1986 May;14(3):238–245. doi: 10.3758/bf03197699. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  30. Weingartner H., Burns S., Diebel R., LeWitt P. A. Cognitive impairments in Parkinson's disease: distinguishing between effort-demanding and automatic cognitive processes. Psychiatry Res. 1984 Mar;11(3):223–235. doi: 10.1016/0165-1781(84)90071-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  31. Wilson R. S., Kaszniak A. W., Klawans H. L., Garron D. C. High speed memory scanning in parkinsonism. Cortex. 1980 Mar;16(1):67–72. doi: 10.1016/s0010-9452(80)80022-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES