Crucian Gregory P, Barrett Anna M, Burks David W, Riestra Alonso R, Roth Heidi L, Schwartz Ronald L, Triggs William J, Bowers Dawn, Friedman William, Greer Melvin, Heilman Kenneth M
Department of Neurology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32610, USA.
J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2003 Nov;9(7):1078-87. doi: 10.1017/S1355617703970111.
Deficits in visual-spatial ability can be associated with Parkinson's disease (PD), and there are several possible reasons for these deficits. Dysfunction in frontal-striatal and/or frontal-parietal systems, associated with dopamine deficiency, might disrupt cognitive processes either supporting (e.g., working memory) or subserving visual-spatial computations. The goal of this study was to assess visual-spatial orientation ability in individuals with PD using the Mental Rotations Test (MRT), along with other measures of cognitive function. Non-demented men with PD were significantly less accurate on this test than matched control men. In contrast, women with PD performed similarly to matched control women, but both groups of women did not perform much better than chance. Further, mental rotation accuracy in men correlated with their executive skills involving mental processing and psychomotor speed. In women with PD, however, mental rotation accuracy correlated negatively with verbal memory, indicating that higher mental rotation performance was associated with lower ability in verbal memory. These results indicate that PD is associated with visual-spatial orientation deficits in men. Women with PD and control women both performed poorly on the MRT, possibly reflecting a floor effect. Although men and women with PD appear to engage different cognitive processes in this task, the reason for the sex difference remains to be elucidated.
视觉空间能力缺陷可能与帕金森病（PD）相关，且这些缺陷存在多种可能的原因。与多巴胺缺乏相关的额纹状体和/或额顶叶系统功能障碍，可能会干扰支持（如工作记忆）或服务于视觉空间计算的认知过程。本研究的目的是使用心理旋转测试（MRT）以及其他认知功能测量方法，评估帕金森病患者的视觉空间定向能力。患有帕金森病的非痴呆男性在该测试中的准确性明显低于匹配的对照男性。相比之下，患有帕金森病的女性表现与匹配的对照女性相似，但两组女性的表现都仅略高于随机水平。此外，男性的心理旋转准确性与其涉及心理加工和精神运动速度的执行技能相关。然而，在患有帕金森病的女性中，心理旋转准确性与言语记忆呈负相关，表明较高的心理旋转表现与较低的言语记忆能力相关。这些结果表明，帕金森病与男性的视觉空间定向缺陷有关。患有帕金森病的女性和对照女性在心理旋转测试中表现都很差，这可能反映了地板效应。尽管患有帕金森病的男性和女性在这项任务中似乎参与了不同的认知过程，但性别差异的原因仍有待阐明。
