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Abstract:
Procedural learning (PL) deficits are common in Parkinson's
Disease (PD), suggesting to some that the basal ganglia are a
neurological substrate of procedural memory. However, evidence
suggests that patients may be able to acquire novel skills if these
do not involve a motor component. In the current study, 13 P.D.
patients and matched controls were compared on reading aloud blocks
of inverted word pairs as fast as possible. These pairs differed in
the level of semantic similarity, and a number of pairs were
presented repeatedly. A retention test was carried out after 30
minutes and the whole procedure was repeated three months later, in
order to determine whether learning was maintained over the short
and long term. The results showed that PD patients did acquire the
new skills necessary for reading inverted word-pairs. In addition,
repeated word-pairs were read faster on subsequent presentations,
and the closer the semantic relationship between word pairs, the
faster they were read, indicating that PD patients also make use of
both semantic and repeated information. Subjects' performance three
months later showed that PD patients were not as efficient as
controls in maintaining and improving upon initial levels of skill.
This suggests that procedural learning processes may be
task-specific and that damage to the basal ganglia may interfere
with long term retention of procedural skill.
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