TY - JOUR
T1 - Apathy in Parkinson's disease: More than just executive dysfunction
AU - Martínez-Horta, Saül
AU - Pagonabarraga, Javier
AU - Fernández De Bobadilla, Ramón
AU - García-Sanchez, Carmen
AU - Kulisevsky, Jaime
PY - 2013/1/1
Y1 - 2013/1/1
N2 - Apathy is a frequent syndrome in Parkinson's disease (PD) usually associated with depression, cognitive impairment (CI), and dementia. Whereas executive dysfunction seems to play a major causative role in the development of apathy in PD, recent findings pointed for the possible participation of other underlying mechanisms in the development of clinically meaningful symptoms of apathy. By means of neuropsychological testing focused over global cognitive functioning, set-shifting, decision making, and cognitive effort, we compared to a control group, a carefully selected sample of PD patients presenting apathy as the only neuropsychiatric symptom and without clinically relevant signs of cognitive impairment. In addition to the previously reported executive dysfunction, apathetic patients also exhibited significant difficulties in tasks assessing for cortical functioning, such as naming and clock drawing. Moreover, apathetic patients performed significantly better on a decision-making task, although any of these differences appeared linked to a lack of effort when performing the tasks. On the basis of our findings, we discuss the possible implication of added mechanisms rather than just executive dysfunction in the development of apathy in PD. Copyright © INS. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2013.
AB - Apathy is a frequent syndrome in Parkinson's disease (PD) usually associated with depression, cognitive impairment (CI), and dementia. Whereas executive dysfunction seems to play a major causative role in the development of apathy in PD, recent findings pointed for the possible participation of other underlying mechanisms in the development of clinically meaningful symptoms of apathy. By means of neuropsychological testing focused over global cognitive functioning, set-shifting, decision making, and cognitive effort, we compared to a control group, a carefully selected sample of PD patients presenting apathy as the only neuropsychiatric symptom and without clinically relevant signs of cognitive impairment. In addition to the previously reported executive dysfunction, apathetic patients also exhibited significant difficulties in tasks assessing for cortical functioning, such as naming and clock drawing. Moreover, apathetic patients performed significantly better on a decision-making task, although any of these differences appeared linked to a lack of effort when performing the tasks. On the basis of our findings, we discuss the possible implication of added mechanisms rather than just executive dysfunction in the development of apathy in PD. Copyright © INS. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2013.
KW - Apathy
KW - Cognition
KW - Cognitive impairment
KW - Executive dysfunction
KW - Parkinson's disease
KW - Reward
U2 - 10.1017/S1355617713000131
DO - 10.1017/S1355617713000131
M3 - Article
VL - 19
SP - 571
EP - 582
JO - Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society
JF - Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society
SN - 1355-6177
IS - 5
ER -