Implicit task switching in Parkinson's disease is preserved when on medication

PLoS One. 2020 Jan 14;15(1):e0227555. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227555. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

People with Parkinson's disease have been shown to have difficulty switching between movement plans. In the great majority of studies, the need to switch between tasks was made explicitly. Here, we tested whether people with Parkinson's disease, taking their normal medication, have difficulty switching between implicitly specified tasks. We further examined whether this switch is performed predictively or reactively. Twenty five people with Parkinson's disease continuously increased or decreased the frequency of their arm movements, inducing an abrupt-but unaware-switch between rhythmic movements (at high frequencies) and discrete movements (at low frequencies). We tested whether that precipitous change was performed reactively or predictively. We found that 56% of participants predictively switched between the two movement types. The ability of people with Parkinson's disease, taking their regular medication, to predictively control their movements on implicit tasks is thus preserved.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Antiparkinson Agents / therapeutic use
  • Arm / physiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Movement
  • Parkinson Disease / drug therapy
  • Parkinson Disease / physiopathology*
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Psychomotor Performance*

Substances

  • Antiparkinson Agents

Associated data

  • figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.11462583.v1

Grants and funding

All funding for author SL from the following funders is gratefully acknowledged: The Promobilia Foundation; the Borten Family Foundation; The Israeli Science Foundation (grants # 535/16 and 2166/16); the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 754340; the Helmsley Charitable Trust through the Agricultural, Biological and Cognitive Robotics Center, and the Marcus Endowment Fund, both at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.