RESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Idiopathic Parkinson's disease induces alterations both motor and cognitive. Levodopa, the treatment of choice, offers initial improvement, but causes long term important complications. It is ignored if it provokes or not a similar situation in cognitive function. METHOD: Two groups of idiopathic parkinsonian patients were studied. One of them was using levodopa as a regular treatment, the other had de novo patients. A group of healthy controls was also studied. The levodopa group was evaluated when levodopa plasma concentration was maximum and when it was minimum. A cognitive battery was used in order to assess the cognitive status of all subjects. RESULTS: Significant differences between the two groups of patients and the healthy controls were found when the treated group had a maximum plasmatic concentration of levodopa. There were also significant differences when they had a minimum concentration in comparison with the healthy controls. The performances of the patients taking levodopa varied between both conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Parkinson's disease provokes a wide variety of cognitive alterations, therefore basal ganglia can be related to a more general function as learning and storing cognitive and motor programs. Levodopa influences in a different way different cognitive functions differently and its influence varies between highest and lowest plasmatic concentrations periods. These results allow us to draw important conclusions about the cognitive alterations caused by the natural course of Parkinson's disease, the introduction of treatment with levodopa and the relationship between basal ganglia and human cognition.
Assuntos
Antiparkinsonianos/efeitos adversos , Transtornos Cognitivos/induzido quimicamente , Levodopa/efeitos adversos , Doença de Parkinson/tratamento farmacológico , Antiparkinsonianos/sangue , Transtornos Cognitivos/diagnóstico , Feminino , Humanos , Levodopa/sangue , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Testes NeuropsicológicosRESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Cerebrovascular disease can cause different memory disorders depending on the area of the brain involved. More specifically, ischemic lesions in the frontal region can be associated to short-term verbal memory disorders. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Two groups of subjects were studied, 10 of whom were patients who presented a frontal cerebral infarction and 10 healthy controls. They were administered a memory task involving word recognition. While they were performing the task the electrical activity of their brains was recorded in order to examine event-related potentials (ERP). RESULTS: The patients' performance of the task was poorer than that of the healthy control subjects. Likewise, while the latter displayed a predominantly frontal distribution of ERPs, in the patients the frontal activity diminished and was seen to be chiefly temporoparietooccipital. CONCLUSIONS: These findings allow important conclusions to be drawn about the characteristics of the memory disorder presented by these patients.
Assuntos
Transtornos Cerebrovasculares/complicações , Transtornos Cerebrovasculares/fisiopatologia , Potenciais Evocados/fisiologia , Transtornos da Memória/diagnóstico , Transtornos da Memória/etiologia , Memória de Curto Prazo/fisiologia , Estudos de Casos e Controles , Eletroencefalografia , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Testes Neuropsicológicos , Desempenho PsicomotorRESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Cerebrovascular disease causes different cognitive alterations. There is a need to develop tools that are capable of diagnosing them. One of them could be event related potentials. These provide an indicator of cognitive processing in real time. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A study was conducted of 10 patients with cerebral infarction in the frontal region and 10 paired healthy controls. Evaluation of the patients was performed a week after the stroke. A continuous performance test was applied to both groups together with the recording of the electrical activity in the brain in order to obtain the P300 component. The results were submitted to the non-parametric Student's t test, and the Bayesian model averaging method (BMAM) was employed to calculate the sources generating the electrical activity recorded on the electroencephalogram. RESULTS: Patients displayed significantly poorer performances compared to the healthy controls in the attention test. The BMAM showed that the P300 component was related to the right hand temporal structures in healthy controls, whereas the left temporoparietal regions were also involved in the patients. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate the existence of subclinical disorders affecting sustained attention and that they can only be detected by very sensitive tools; furthermore, they also have implications for the brain circuits regulating sustained attention and the P300 component.