Investigating the Role of Attention in Perceptual and Cognitive Consequences of Parkinson’s Disease

University Of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha NE

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

ABSTRACT Project 4 (RPL Kovach) – Investigating the Role of Attention in Perceptual and Cognitive Consequences of Parkinson’s Disease Cognitive Neuroscience of Development and Aging (CoNDA) Center Cognitive and emotional impairments are a significant source of morbidity in Parkinson’s disease (PD), beyond the hallmark motor symptoms; yet they remain a poorly understood aspect of the disorder. Among the significant and debilitating non-motor symptoms of PD are deficits in the perception of social cues, such as facial expressions of emotion. Perceptual deficits in PD might arise through several mechanisms, and as yet, no unified model of motor and perceptual symptoms has been convincingly demonstrated. Attention is crucial for the perception of complex stimuli; hence one possibility is that impaired perception in PD is a consequence of abnormal control of attention. Because eye movement is altered in PD in a manner consistent with other motoric changes, and because normal eye movement is closely linked to visuospatial attention, this possibility points to a common origin for attentional, perceptual, and oculomotor symptoms of the disorder. Attentional control is, moreover, an essential element of a wide range of cognitive processes, including working memory and executive function, raising the prospect of a more broadly unified model of cognitive and motor symptoms in PD, stemming from networks common to attentional and motor control. We propose a focused test of this theoretical perspective by examining whether and how abnormal eye movements in PD associate with impaired perceptual judgment of facial emotion, under the working hypothesis that impaired perception of facial expression will correlate tightly with abnormal patterns of gaze to faces. The opportunity to record from and stimulate structures targeted by therapeutic deep brain stimulation (DBS) will allow a detailed interrogation of the hypothesis and inform models of neural pathways governing attentional control. This combination of methods will allow the hypothesis to be tested across three levels of analysis: (1) through between-group comparisons of PD patients, matched comparison healthy subjects, and DBS patients treated for essential tremor (ET); (2) through within-group correlational analyses, afforded by the wide variability of non-motor deficits in PD; and (3) through within-subject comparisons across manipulations of DBS. Results of the study will inform future therapeutic strategies for cognitive symptoms of PD.