Affiliations: IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy | Dipartimento di Psicologia, University of Palermo,
Palermo, Italy | Department of Neuroscience, University of Rome Tor
Vergata, Roma, Italy
Note: [] Corresponding author: Alberto Costa, I.R.C.C.S. Fondazione Santa
Lucia, Via Ardeatina 306, 00179 Rome, Italy. Tel.: +39 0651501574; Fax: +39
0651501584; E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: Understanding the mental states of others entails a number of
cognitive processes known as Theory of Mind (ToM). A relationship between ToM
deficits and executive disorders has been hypothesized in individuals with
Parkinson's disease (PD). The present study was aimed at investigating the
effect of dysexecutive deficits on ToM abilities in PD patients without
dementia. Participants included 30 PD patients and 30 healthy subjects (HC). PD
patients were divided into two groups according to their executive test
performance: patients with poor (dysexecutive group; n=15) and normal
(executively unimpaired group; n=15) performance. All participants were
administered faux pas recognition written stories. The dysexecutive PD patients
performed less accurately than both HC and executively unimpaired PD
individuals on all faux pas story questions (p< 0.05); the executively
unimpaired PD group performed as accurately as the HC group on the ToM tasks.
Results of the study clearly demonstrate that PD is not tout court associated
with ToM impairments and that these may occur in PD patients as a function of
the degree of their executive impairment. Our findings also indirectly confirm
previous data on the role of the prefrontal regions in mediating ToM
capacities.
Keywords: Theory of Mind, Parkinson's disease, executive functions
