PAPER

Inhibition of ongoing responses in patients with Parkinson’s disease

S Gauggel¹, M Rieger² and T-A Feghoff³

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Technology Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany
² Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich
³ Stuvkamp 9, D-22081 Hamburg

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
S Gauggel
Department of Psychology, University of Technology Chemnitz, Wilhelm-Raabe-Str. 43, D-09120 Chemnitz, Germany; siegfried.gauggel{at}phil.tu-chemnitz.de

Objectives: We investigated the involvement of the basal ganglia in inhibiting ongoing responses in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Methods: Thirty two patients with PD and 31 orthopaedic controls performed the stop signal task, which allows an estimation of the time it takes to inhibit an ongoing reaction (stop signal reaction time, SSRT).

Results: Patients with PD showed significantly longer SSRTs than the controls. This effect seemed to be independent of global cognitive impairment and severity of PD. Furthermore, in the PD patients, there was no significant relation between general slowing and inhibitory efficiency.

Conclusions: Our results provide evidence for involvement of the basal ganglia in the inhibition of ongoing responses.

Keywords: Parkinson’s disease; basal ganglia; inhibition of ongoing responses; stop signal task

Abbreviations: AMS, Achievement Measure System; ANCOVA, analysis of covariance; AVLT, Auditory Verbal Learning Test; OC, orthopaedic controls; RT, reaction time; SSRT, stop signal reaction time; PD, Parkinson’s disease

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