| Project/Area Number |
15590910
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Neurology
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| Research Institution | Showa University School of Medicine |
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Principal Investigator |
KAWAMURA Mitsuru Showa University, School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Professor, 医学部, 教授 (20161375)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
ICHIKAWA Hiroo Showa Univ., School of Med, Department of Neurology, Lecturer, 医学部, 講師 (70296953)
HASEGAWA Yukihiro Showa Univ., School of Med, Department of Neurology, Assistant, 医学部, 助手 (90307033)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2004
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2004)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,400,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥2,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000)
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| Keywords | Recognition of facial expressions / Cognition of Emotion / Inference of mental state / Social decision-making / Event-related potentials / dipole-tracing / Basal ganglia / Amygdala / 手続き記憶 / 社会的意志決定 / 縦断的研究 |
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| Research Abstract |
Previous studies showed that cognitive functions could be impaired in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, only cognitive impairments concerning executive functions and memory (procedural memory) were reported so far. In the present study, we examined whether or not PD patients have cognitive impairments other than those in the above, using behavior analysis and EEG (event-related potentials : ERP). The following results were obtained. (1) Our previous study showed that recognition of specific facial expressions (fear and disgust) is impaired in PD patients (Kan et al.2002). Supporting this finding, our recent study using ERP showed uniqueness of facial recognition in PD patients. The ERP study using dipole-tracing technique indicated that the amygdala and the pre-motor cortex were not active during the facial expression recognition task, whereas these areas were active in the normal control. The result suggests that the amygdala could be damaged in PD patients, as well as the basal ganglia (Yoshimura et al.2005). (2) Recently, the tasks concerning "theory of mind" and "social decision-making" are used to assess the frontal-lobe functions. Since it was hypothesized that the frontal lobe would be dysfunctioning in PD patients, we examined how PD patients would perform those tasks. The results showed that PD patients performed poorly in a "theory of mind" task in which they were asked to infer the thoughts/feelings of others, and that social decision-making was also impaired in PD patients (Oheda et al, in preparation).
In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that PD patients have deficits in recognition of facial expressions and in social cognition, as well as deficits in executive functions and procedural memory. In addition, the present study provided us a diagnostic tool by which we can examine clinical symptoms caused by the brain damage in the areas other than the basal ganglia, in PD patients.
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