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Sensorimotor Impairment in the Elderly pp 265–291Cite as

Motor Slowness in Parkinson’s Disease

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Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASID,volume 75))

Abstract

Patients with Parkinson’s disease are slow in initiating and executing even simple movements. It has been suggested that the slowness of movement initiation in Parkinson’s disease may reflect deficits in motor programming. To test this hypothesis a number of studies have compared the performance of patients with Parkinson’s disease and normal controls on simple (SRT) and choice reaction time (CRT) tasks. The results of these studies are inconsistent. The relationship between SRT and CRT in patients relative to controls fits four possible statistical patterns: no deficit, general slowing, selective slowing of SRT, and selective slowing of CRT. Variations in sample characteristics and procedural differences between studies could partly account for the discrepant pattern of results. The results of two studies are reported which were conducted to assess the effect of a number of procedural variables on SRT and CRT in Parkinson’s disease. The results of the RT studies allow a number of conclusions. However, the processes underlying motor slowness in Parkinson’s disease have not been fully explained by RT paradigms. Another approach, however, is to ask what the anatomical substrates of this motor slowness are. In Parkinson’s disease there is a loss of dopaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia, especially the putamen. The supplementary motor area (SMA) is the major cortical output region for the putamen. Therefore, the slowness in motor programming and response initiation observed in our studies is consistent with another hypothesis proposing that the motor deficits of Parkinson’s disease may result from the functional deafferentation of the putamen from the SMA. Evidence from clinical descriptions of symptomatology, comparative behavioural studies of simple and complex movements, electrophysiological investigations of motor preparation, and recent PET activation studies will be reviewed which provide some support for this hypothesis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Neurology Institute of Neurology & Medical Research Council, Human Movement and Balance Unit & The National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, UK

    M. Jahanshahi, R. G. Brown & C. D. Marsden

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  1. M. Jahanshahi
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  2. R. G. Brown
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  3. C. D. Marsden
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Motor Control Section, Exercise and Sport Research Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

    George E. Stelmach

  2. Neurological Therapy Center, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Volker Hömberg

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Jahanshahi, M., Brown, R.G., Marsden, C.D. (1993). Motor Slowness in Parkinson’s Disease. In: Stelmach, G.E., Hömberg, V. (eds) Sensorimotor Impairment in the Elderly. NATO ASI Series, vol 75. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1976-4_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1976-4_18

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