New Knowledge about Parkinson's disease and effects on the behavior of the patient

A new neuropsychological memory test used to detect, such as Parkinson's disease, people's ability to learn about the consequences of decisions. The test was conducted by Dr. Mark Gluck, professor of neuroscience at the Center for Molecular Sciences and behavior Neuroscience at Rutgers University, Newark, cooperation with co-researcher at Rutgers, New York University, and Hungary.

As in a forthcoming article in the journal Brain, Gluck and co-researchers and Szabolcs Keri Nikoletta Bodi Semmelweis University, Hungary, found that non-medical patients at an early stage of Parkinson were selectively assigned to learning Reward outside.

Patients were in Hungary with us a new task of learning, Gluck and his colleagues: Catherine E. Myers, Research Professor, Rutgers University, Newark, and Nathaniel Daw, Assistant Professor of the New York University. The research was by a Foundation Prize Dekker Bachman-Strauss Dystonia and Parkinson Foundation.

"What we are seeing recently diagnosed patients is that, before all the drugs, which show a selective degradation in their ability to learn, positive (reward) results, while its sensitivity to study negative (or punishment) results are normal, "said Gluck, director of Rutgers' Center for Cooperative Research on cognition and Parkinson's disease.

This selective deficit in learning salary is not surprising, "said Gluck, because already, scientists have long known that dopamine is used for reward information on the brain. People with Parkinson's, but most of their dopamine-producing cells in time, as a first step, with the diagnosis of the disease. This decrease is in their ability of dealing with the results of reward may be one reason why many patients with Parkinson's, depression, says happiness. "It is not only a disease, but they have the capacity for rewarding aspects of life."

Gluck and colleagues, that these wage-learning deficit of the United Nations and drugs for Parkinson's patients is directly contrary to the patients once they begin treatment with dopamine agonists, a standard for the treatment the motor symptoms of the disease. -Dopamine agonists, a patient, the ability to learn, the reward outcome of the results has improved to normal levels. But there was a hook - its ability to learn from the negative consequences (or punishment) of the results so far usual, was affected.

Gluck says that for greater sensitivity of the study events, the results of positive results, in conjunction with a reduced ability to learn, for the negative results could explain why some people with Parkinson's, the Dopamine agonists impulse control of diseases, including pathological gambling, hypersexuality, alcoholism, and forced to eat and responsible purchasing. All these behaviors can be considered as wages, behavior in the absence of an appropriate negative effects.

"For example," notes that, Gluck, "if your ability to learn, for the negative results would be reduced and you play games and win $ 10 for a few laps, but much more time to lose, you remember this which is the best to win the tension. As such, you are an obstacle to your ability to learn that gambling can have negative effects. "

The ability to assess the impact on the feedback in the learning of first outbreaks of Parkinson's disease could be more of an overview of the impact of the loss of dopamine on cognition and behavior . It could also pave the way for the identification, people with Parkinson's to live the agonist return problems, so they can be treated with other drugs.

Other research being Gluck and his clinical staff in New Jersey, New York, Europe and the Middle East, want to understand how and why learning and decision making in Parkinson's disease and drugs for the treatment of motor symptoms may affect or repair of basic cognitive abilities.

In addition to providing new insight into the impact of Parkinson's disease and dopamine agonists on learning and personality, the new back training missions online at Rutgers University have used for learning and decision-making deficits in men with fronto-temporal dementia (FTD), a degenerative condition of the anterior part of the brain cortex. FTD is associated with the dramatic development of the personality, behavior and thinking, which may be an inhibition, social withdrawal and force behavior.

Co-Investigator with Murray Grossman, University of Pennsylvania, Gluck examine changes in the positive and negative learning to diagnose these FTDs. That research, funded by a grant from the Society of frontotemporal dementia, has the potential to do in the search for methods to help correct the behavior of FTD patients.

"If, for example, patients learn reward FTD little better then this means that caregivers might be to avoid responding negatively to the inappropriate behavior and the place of reward for the patient is not in inappropriate behavior "says happiness.