A neuropsychological evaluation of cognitive and behavioral impairments in Parkinson's disease: Relationships to frontostriatal circuitry.
Item
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Title
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A neuropsychological evaluation of cognitive and behavioral impairments in Parkinson's disease: Relationships to frontostriatal circuitry.
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Identifier
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AAI3115303
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identifier
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3115303
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Creator
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Zgaljardic, Dennis J.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Joan C. Borod
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Date
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2004
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Psychobiology | Psychology, Cognitive | Psychology, Behavioral
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Abstract
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Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative hypokinetic movement disorder presenting with subcortical pathology. However, as is frequently reported in the literature, individuals with PD can exhibit cognitive and behavioral impairments, executive dysfunction and depression being the most prominent. Attention has been given to the involvement of the frontostriatal circuits connecting the frontal cortical regions and the basal ganglia (i.e., dorsolateral prefrontal [DLPFC], anterior cingulate [ACC], and orbitofrontal cortex [OFC]) and to how these circuits might mediate frontal/executive dysfunction in PD. Our objective, in this study was to ascertain how changes in frontostriatal circuitry might explain neuropsychological impairments exhibited in this patient population. Standardized executive neuropsychological tests and self-report behavioral scales, categorized by circuit function, were administered to 32 nondemented dopamine-alleviated PD patients and to 29 demographically matched, healthy control subjects. Our findings revealed significant group differences between all task circuit conditions, with the PD group performing worse relative to the control group. Calculated effect sizes revealed that the greatest magnitude of difference between subject groups occurred for tasks mediated by the DLPFC circuit. In the PD group, indices of impairment were greater for tasks mediated by the DLPFC circuit than by the ACC and OFC circuit. Furthermore, an index of DLPFC circuit performance was discovered to be the only significant predictor in discriminating between individuals with and without PD. Using factor analysis, overall task performance across groups did not load according to circuit, alluding to limited specificity of select executive measures. In conclusion, our findings suggest that frontal/executive impairments in our PD sample appear to predominantly reflect dysfunction of the DLPFC circuit.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
