Faculty Collaboration Database

Prism adaptation in Parkinson disease: comparing reaching to walking and freezers to non-freezers. Exp Brain Res 2015 Aug;233(8):2301-10

Date

05/16/2015

Pubmed ID

25976516

Pubmed Central ID

PMC4513667

DOI

10.1007/s00221-015-4299-4

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-84937969888 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   7 Citations

Abstract

Visuomotor adaptation to gaze-shifting prism glasses requires recalibration of the relationship between sensory input and motor output. Healthy individuals flexibly adapt movement patterns to many external perturbations; however, individuals with cerebellar damage do not adapt movements to the same extent. People with Parkinson disease (PD) adapt normally, but exhibit reduced after-effects, which are negative movement errors following the removal of the prism glasses and are indicative of true spatial realignment. Walking is particularly affected in PD, and many individuals experience freezing of gait (FOG), an episodic interruption in walking, that is thought to have a distinct pathophysiology. Here, we examined how individuals with PD with (PD + FOG) and without (PD - FOG) FOG, along with healthy older adults, adapted both reaching and walking patterns to prism glasses. Participants completed a visually guided reaching and walking task with and without rightward-shifting prism glasses. All groups adapted at similar rates during reaching and during walking. However, overall walking adaptation rates were slower compared to reaching rates. The PD - FOG group showed smaller after-effects, particularly during walking, compared to PD + FOG, independent of adaptation magnitude. While FOG did not appear to affect characteristics of prism adaptation, these results support the idea that the distinct neural processes governing visuomotor adaptation and storage are differentially affected by basal ganglia dysfunction in PD.

Author List

Nemanich ST, Earhart GM

Author

Sam Nemanich Ph.D. Assistant Professor in the Occupational Therapy department at Marquette University

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adaptation, Physiological
Aged
Female
Gait Disorders, Neurologic
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Parkinson Disease
Psychomotor Performance
Visual Perception
Walking