Affiliations: Department of Physiological Psychology, University of
Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany | Max-Planck-Institute for Neurological Research,
Cologne, Germany | Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Cologne,
Germany | Parkinson Clinic Wolfach, Germany
Note: [] Corresponding author: Matthias Brand, Department of
Physiological Psychology, University of Bielefeld, P.O. Box 100131, 33501
Bielefeld, Germany. Tel.: +49 521 1064488; Fax: +49 521 1066049; E-mail:
[email protected]
Abstract: A high percentage of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients show
cognitive impairments in addition to the cardinal motor symptoms. These
deficits primarily concern executive functions most probably linked to
dysfunctions in prefrontal regions due to decreased dopaminergic transmission
in fronto-striatal loops. To investigate possible associations between
decision-making and executive functions in PD, we examined 20 non-demented PD
patients and 20 healthy control subjects with a neuropsychological test battery
and the Game of Dice Task. In this computerised decision-making task, the rules
for gains and losses and the winning probabilities are obvious and stable.
Thus, strategic components besides feedback processing might influence
decision-making in this task. We found that PD patients were impaired in the
Game of Dice task performance and that the frequency of disadvantageous choices
correlated with both executive functions and feedback processing. We suggest
that decision-making deficits of PD patients in explicit gambling situations
might be associated with dysfunctions in two different fronto-striatal loops:
the limbic-orbitofrontal-striatal loop, involved in feedback processing, and
the dorsolateral prefrontal-striatal loop, involved in executive functions.
