Emotional memory in patients with early-stage Parkinson′s disease

Abstract

Objective To explore the characteristics of emotional memory in patients with early- stage Parkinson′s disease (PD). Methods The methods of emotional memory neuro-cognitive test and event-related evoked potentials (ERPs) test were set. The emotional memory was detected in 30 early-stage PD patients without treatment (PD group) and 30 matched (including education level, etc) healthy controls (control group), who were recruited in the Department of Neurology, Anqing Municipal Hospital from June 2016 to June 2018. Results Compared with the control group (55.83%±4.17%), the negative valence picture recognition rate in the PD group (50.30%±4.04%) showed statistically significant difference (t=4.85, P 0.05). In the PD group, the correct recognition in positive, neutral and negative valence pictures (57.97%±4.44%, 49.77%±4.49%, 50.30%±4.04%, respectively) showed statistically significant difference (F=39.17, P 0.05). In the control group, the correct recognition in positive, neutral and negative valence pictures (59.47%±4.61%, 50.63%±4.96%, 55.83%±4.17%, respectively) also showed statistically significant difference (F=25.85, P 0.05). However, there was statistically significant difference in the latency and amplitude of P300 in the rating of negative valence of emotional pictures between the two groups (t=-5.63, 4.16, P<0.05). Conclusions The results suggest that there is emotional memory impairment in early stage of PD, which is mainly based on selective negative emotional valence. Testing the emotional memory of patients with PD is helpful for early identification and intervention. Key words: Parkinson disease; Emotions; Memory; Cognition; Event-related potentials, P300