Skip to main content
Log in

Neuropsychological features of patients with Parkinson’s disease and impulse control disorders

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Neurological Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Impulse control disorders (ICDs) are frequent in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Aim of the present study was to investigate cognition and behaviour in PD patients with and without ICDs, in order to identify potential early clinical features which might be associated to the development of ICDs. We recruited 17 PD patients with ICDs and 17 without ICDs, matched for several clinical variables, without clinically significant cognitive deficits. Assessments included behavioural scales and a neuropsychological battery, including the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). In patients with ICDs, the total score of the BIS and the Motor Impulsivity subscore were significantly higher than in patients without ICDs. In patients with ICDs, we observed only statistical trends towards a worse performance on neuropsychological tasks (go-no-go subtest of the Frontal Assessment Battery, oral verb naming task, copying of drawings with landmarks) sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction (FLD) and on the IGT (loss of a greater amount of money, more risky choices). As compared to patients without ICDs, they reported a more than threefold number of errors on the interference subtest of Stroop test, which is also sensitive to FLD. Although this study did not show any significant difference between PD patients presenting ICDs as compared with patients without ICDs on neuropsychological variables, some preliminary evidence was detected suggesting a trend toward a worse performance of the PD-ICD group on few neuropsychological tasks which are at least partially sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction, including tasks sensitive to dysfunction of ventral fronto-striatal loops.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Lim SY, Evans AH, Miyasaki JM (2008) Impulse control and related disorders in Parkinson’s disease: review. Ann NY Acad Sci 1142:85–107

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Voon V, Hassan K, Zurowski M et al (2006) Prevalence of repetitive and reward-seeking behaviors in Parkinson disease. Neurology 67:1254–1257

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Giladi N, Weitzman N, Schreiber S, Shabtai H, Peretz C (2007) New onset heightened interest or drive for gambling, shopping, eating or sexual activity in patients with Parkinson’s disease: the role of dopamine agonist treatment and age at motor symptoms onset. J Psychopharmacol 21:501–506

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Brewer JA, Potenza MN (2008) The neurobiology and genetics of impulse control disorders: relationships to drug addictions. Biochem Pharmacol 75:63–75

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Santangelo G, Vitale C, Trojano L, Verde F, Grossi D, Barone P (2009) Cognitive dysfunctions and pathological gambling in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord 24:899–905

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Siri C, Cilia R, De Gaspari D et al (2010) Cognitive status of patients with Parkinson’s disease and pathological gambling. J Neurol 257:247–252

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Antonini A, Siri C, Santangelo G et al (2011) Impulsivity and compulsivity in drug-naive patients with Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord 26:464–468

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Voon V, Sohr M, Lang AE et al (2011) Impulse control disorders in Parkinson disease: a multicenter case–control study. Ann Neurol 69:986–996

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Gelb DJ, Oliver E, Gilman S (1999) Diagnostic criteria for Parkinson disease. Arch Neurol 56:33–39

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Association AP (1994) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th edn. Washington, DC

  11. Folstein MF, Folstein SE, McHugh PR (1975) “Mini-mental state”. A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. J Psychiatr Res 12:189–198

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Fahn S, Elton R (1987) Unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale. In: Fahn S, Marsden CD, Calne DB, Goldstein M (eds) Recent developments in Parkinson’s disease. MacMillan, Florham Park, NJ, pp 153–163, 293–304

  13. Tomlinson CL, Stowe R, Patel S, Rick C, Gray R, Clarke CE (2010) Systematic review of levodopa dose equivalency reporting in Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord 25:2649–2653

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Daniele A, Giustolisi L, Silveri MC, Colosimo C, Gainotti G (1994) Evidence for a possible neuroanatomical basis for lexical processing of nouns and verbs. Neuropsychologia 32:1325–1341

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Caffarra P, Vezzadini G, Dieci F, Zonato F, Venneri A (2002) Rey–Osterrieth complex figure: normative values in an Italian population sample. Neurol Sci 22:443–447

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Gainotti G, Marra C, Villa G (2001) A double dissociation between accuracy and time of execution on attentional tasks in Alzheimer’s disease and multi-infarct dementia. Brain 124:731–737

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Marra C, Gainotti G, Scaricamazza E, Piccininni C, Ferraccioli M, Quaranta D (2012) The Multiple Features Target Cancellation (MFTC): an attentional visual conjunction search test. Normative values for the Italian population. Neurol Sci. doi:10.1007/s10072-012-0975-338

    Google Scholar 

  18. Miceli G, Capasso R, Caramazza A (1994) The interaction of lexical and sublexical processes in reading, writing and repetition. Neuropsychologia 32:317–333

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Beck AT, Ward CH, Mendelson M, Mock J, Erbaugh J (1961) An inventory for measuring depression. Arch Gen Psychiatry 4:561–571

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Hamilton M (1959) The assessment of anxiety states by rating. Br J Med Psychol 32:50–55

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Patton JH, Stanford MS, Barratt ES (1995) Factor structure of the Barratt impulsiveness scale. J Clin Psychol 51:768–774

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Bechara A, Tranel D, Damasio H (2000) Characterization of the decision-making deficit of patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions. Brain 123(Pt 11):2189–2202

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Piatt AL, Fields JA, Paolo AM, Troster AI (1999) Action (verb naming) fluency as an executive function measure: convergent and divergent evidence of validity. Neuropsychologia 37:1499–1503

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Gainotti G, Miceli G, Caltagirone C (1977) Constructional apraxia in left brain-damaged patients: a planning disorder? Cortex 13:109–118

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Fellows LK, Farah MJ (2005) Different underlying impairments in decision-making following ventromedial and dorsolateral frontal lobe damage in humans. Cereb Cortex 15:58–63

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Cilia R, Siri C, Marotta G et al (2008) Functional abnormalities underlying pathological gambling in Parkinson disease. Arch Neurol 65:1604–1611

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Isaias IU, Siri C, Cilia R, De Gaspari D, Pezzoli G, Antonini A (2008) The relationship between impulsivity and impulse control disorders in Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord 23:411–415

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lucia Ricciardi.

Additional information

A. R. Bentivoglio and E. Baldonero equally contributed to the study.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bentivoglio, A.R., Baldonero, E., Ricciardi, L. et al. Neuropsychological features of patients with Parkinson’s disease and impulse control disorders. Neurol Sci 34, 1207–1213 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-012-1224-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-012-1224-5

Keywords

Navigation