Characteristics of emotional memory impairment in untreated patients with early Parkinson's disease

Abstract

Objective To characterize emotional memory impairment in untreated patients with Parkinson' s disease (PD) in the early stages of the disease. Methods Emotional memory tasks using standardized sets of emotional pictures including positive, neutral and negative valence were tested in 33 untreated patients with PD in the early stages and 31 healthy controls matched with age, sex, and education.Results Compared with the healthy adults (13.4 ± 1.4), PD patients had significant loss of negative valence picture memorizing ( 8. 9 ± 1.0; t = - 14. 87, P ＜ 0. 01 ). There was no significant difference between PD patients and normal controls in positive ( 11.8 ± 1.0 vs 12. 4 ± 2. 2 , t = - 0. 95 ) and neutral (7.9 ± 1.4 vs 8.2 ± 1.3, t = - 0. 89) valence picture memorizing ( both P ＞ 0. 05 ). Conclusion The emotional memory for negative valence pictures is impaired but the emotional memory for positive and neutral is relatively spared in early PD patients without treatment. Key words: Parkinson disease ; Emotions; Memory; Neuropsychological tests