Neuropsychological abnormalities in first degree relatives of patients with familial Parkinson's disease
- Department of Neurology, Medical University of Lübeck, Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23538 Lübeck, Germany
- Professor P Vieregge vieregge_p{at}neuro.mu-luebeck.de
We enjoyed reading the paper by Dujardinet al 1 who investigated possible preclinical features of asymptomatic relatives in families with Parkinson's disease. A battery of neuropsychological tests disclosed impaired frontal executive function in 15 of 41 first degree relatives of patients with familial Parkinson's disease. Nine showed general frontal executive impairment. The other six only had lower scores in parts of motor dynamic sequences and word fluency. The authors concluded that this dysexecutive syndrome could be a premorbid expression of Parkinson's disease. It could represent an early nigrostriatal dysfunction in first degree relatives of probands with familial Parkinson's disease who may thus carry a higher genetic risk of developing the disease.
Dujardin et al describe modifications of the cognitive status which we reported in unaffected co-twins of …
