Manipulation of working memory information is impaired in Parkinson's disease and related to working memory capacity.

Abstract

It has been suggested that in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), difficulties in the manipulation of information, which result in problems in executive tasks, are related to a reduction of working memory capacity (J. D. E. Gabrieli, J. Singh, G. T. Stebbins, & C. G. Goetz, 1996). The present study selectively varied the manipulation demand irrespective of the maintenance requirement. In a group of 14 PD patients, performance declined overproportionally with the increasing task demand and was significantly correlated with a measure of working memory capacity. These results suggest that the complexity of working memory processing may decisively contribute to the exhaustion of resources in PD patients. Increasing complexity may either affect their manipulation ability directly or impede the management of inhibitory control requirements inherent to the task.

Effects of modafinil on working memory processes in humans

“…The manipulation task requires short-term maintenance and manipulation of a numeric sequence. Variants of this task with digit, letter or word sequences and different reordering instructions have been used in clinical (Bublak et al 2000(Bublak et al , 2002Lewis et al 2003a), pharmacological (Müller et al 2004;Honey et al 2003) and neuroimaging studies Gruber et al 1999;Postle et al 1999;Barde and Thompson-Schill 2002;Lewis et al 2003b).…”

A longitudinal study of neuropsychological change in individuals with Parkinson's disease

“…For example, compared to healthy controls, nondemented PD patients show deficits in visuospatial abilities, category learning, verbal fluency, set switching, and executive function (e.g. Taylor et al, 1986;Wasserstein et al, 1987;Levin et al, 1991;Bondi et al, 1993;Bublak et al, 2002;Ashby et al, 2003). The abilities most susceptible are those reliant on 'frontal functions'-abilities that require the manipulation of information.…”

Neuropsychologisch-verhaltenstherapeutisch orientierte Gruppentherapie bei Parkinson-Patienten

“…Mit Fortschreiten der Erkrankung kann es jedoch zu deutlichen Defiziten im Bereich der kognitiven Schnelligkeit und Aufmerksamkeit, des Gedächtnisses der visuo-konstruktiven Fähigkeiten sowie der Exekutivfunktionen kommen (z.B. Taylor et al, 1987;Wassenstein et al, 1987;Levin et al, 1991;Bondi et al, 1993;Bublak et al, 2002;Ashby et al, 2003 (Posner & Boies, 1971;Posner & Rafal, 1987 (Howes & Boller, 1975;Mesulam, 1985;Posner et al, 1987;Ladavas, 1987).…”