Altered transposition asymmetry in serial ordering in early Parkinson's disease

Abstract

Introduction: The ability to arrange thoughts and actions in an appropriate serial order is impaired in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, it is unclear how serial order is represented and manipulated and how the representation or manipulation is altered in the early stages of PD. We aimed to analyze the pattern of performance errors in serial ordering versus serial recall in nondemented PD patients with mild clinical symptoms and healthy adults to identify the underlying principles of serial ordering. Methods: PD patients (N = 57) and healthy controls (N = 40) completed the adaptive digit ordering and digit span forward tests. We focused on items recalled in incorrect positions (transposition) and analyzed the tendency to recall transposed items too early (anticipation) versus too late (postponement). We also analyzed the tendency to recall the item displaced by the error (fill-in) versus the item following the error in the target output order (infill) after anticipation errors. Results: PD patients not only made more transposition errors but also showed distinct error patterns. The patients made more anticipations but not postponements, and more fill-ins but not in fills than healthy controls in the ordering test (transposition asymmetry). Individual patients' percentage of anticipations was negatively correlated with their daily exposure to D2/3 receptor agonists. Patients' error pattern in the forward test was normal. Conclusion: The increase in anticipations in PD suggests an increase in the forward-specific variability in the representation of serial order. Their increase in fill-ins suggests a deficit in the chaining mechanism involved in the manipulation of serial order.that the language and planning problems may result from a deficit in the manipulation of serial order in working memory [6]. In this study, we aimed to identify the underlying principles of serial ordering (versus serial recall) by analyzing the error pattern of patients' performance.Earlier analyses of serial recall performance suggest that when confusing the position of an item, healthy adults tend to recall the item too early (anticipation, e.g., recalling item i+1 in position i, see Fig. 1) rather than too late (postponement, e.g., recalling item i-1 in position i).

SERIAL‐ORDER recall in working memory across the cognitive spectrum of Parkinson’s disease and neuroimaging correlates

“…In accordance with previous studies (Ma et al , 2018; Ma et al , 2019), we show that PD‐MCI patients scored lower for SERIAL‐ORDER recall suggesting impaired WM skills necessary for successful mental manipulation, temporal ordering and disengagement. To support this conclusion, we also analysed the data using general linear model one‐way ANCOVA with post hoc tests and depression, education and either SERIAL ORDER or ANY ORDER as covariates (Study 1; Table S4).…”

“…Prior research suggests that PD impairs more than just the maintenance or retrieval of information, but also negatively impacts higher-level mental manipulation/WM skills, and that these deficits might be improved by dopaminergic medications (Costa, Peppe, Dell'Agnello, Caltagirone, & Carlesimo, 2009;Lewis, Slabosz, Robbins, Barker, & Owen, 2005;Morris et al, 1988) and by different task demands (Lewis, Cools, et al, 2003;. However, recent work by Ma et al (2018Ma et al ( , 2019 might contradict this notion as these researchers reported evidence for backward, but not forward, SERIAL-ORDER deficits in early stages of PD based upon observations of greater number of anticipations and fill-in errors (the tendency to recall the item displaced by the error).…”

Substantia Nigra Integrity Correlates with Sequential Working Memory in Parkinson's Disease

“…1A) that highlighted the flexible manipulation of sequences by contrasting 'reordering & recall' with 'pure recall' trials. In PD, sequence manipulation is often impaired even though sequence maintenance is preserved (Ma et al, 2019). In 'pure recall' trials, participants recalled a sequence of digits in the order they had been presented.…”

Interaction of graphene with antipsychotic drugs: Is there any charge transfer process?

“…24,25 Agonists and antagonists of dopamine D2 and D3 receptors (D2R and D3R) are used to treat Parkinson, depression, and schizophrenia. [26][27][28][29][30][31] These drugs have different behavior and are used for different purposes. Briefly, it can be said that antagonists of dopamine are molecules that interact but do not activate the receptor while agonists are those that bind and activate the receptor, as dopamine does.…”

“…Agonists and antagonists of dopamine D2 and D3 receptors (D2R and D3R) are used to treat Parkinson, depression, and schizophrenia 26–31 . These drugs have different behavior and are used for different purposes.…”