Bradyphrenia in Parkinson's Disease and Psychomotor Retardation in Depressive Illness

Abstract

Thirty newly diagnosed patients with Parkinson's disease and 30 patients with primary depressive illness showed slowing of response on a computerized digit symbol substitution test when compared with 30 matched normal control subjects. Significant slowing was related, in the parkinsonian patients, to structural brain disorder and affective impairment and, in the depressed patients, to motor impairment. A second computerized test, cognitively simpler but requiring the same motor response, was also administered to each subject. Both cognitive and motor slowing seemed to contribute to slowing of response in the digit symbol test in both parkinsonian and depressed patients. The tests were repeated after about six months in 12 subjects from each group. The parkinsonian patients, on dopaminergic treatment, showed neither significant change in motor or affective impairment, nor improvement in response time for the digit symbol test, but change in response time was related to change in depression rating. The depressed patients, on conventional treatment, showed significant improvement in both affective and motor impairment and improvement in response time for the digit symbol test, due to improvement in cognitive slowing. It is proposed that bradyphrenia in Parkinson's disease and psychomotor retardation in depressive illness are closely related, and that impairment of dopaminergic systems may be involved in both.

Beta Reactivity, Prospective Facilitation of Executive Processing, and Its Dependence on Dopaminergic Therapy in Parkinson's Disease

“…The dopamine dependency of beta reactivity in the motor task is consistent with current theories of the nature of oscillatory activity in this frequency band (Jenkinson and Brown, 2011), and there is good evidence that the prevailing level of beta activity in the motor regions of the basal ganglia can be altered by drugs that manipulate dopamine and its receptors, both in patients with PD (Hammond et al, 2007) and those without PD . The dopamine dependency of beta reactivity in the cognitive task is perhaps more unexpected, but would be in keeping with observations of bradyphrenia and cognitive inflexibility treatable with dopamine in some patients with PD (Rogers et al, 1987;Lees, 1994;Zgaljardic et al, 2003).…”

Non-dipping nocturnal blood pressure and psychosis parameters in Parkinson disease

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Changes in fine motor retardation in depressed patients treated with fluoxetine

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