Speaker
Description
Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) may be more prone to make risky value-based decisions, probably due to impairments in anticipating the unrewarding consequences or to an insensitiveness to them. So far, evidence showed that: i) In PD neural structures pivotal in decision making (DM) are affected; ii) Dopaminergic medications may bias choices toward risk; iii) Cognitive functioning, in particular executive functions (EFs), is crucial to avoid risky decisions. The present study aimed at deepening the DM mechanisms in PD patients without impulse control disorders, both comparing the decisional performances between patients and healthy controls and analyzing the decisional performances in relation to different dopamine medications and cognitive functioning. Through a neuropsychological battery composed of cognitive tests to evaluate EFs and memory and decisional tasks (i.e., Iowa Gambling Task and Game of Dice Task), differences in value-based DM between 33 adults with PD (age: 66.21 ± 7.64 years; education: 10.61 ± 3.80 years) and 33 matched healthy controls (age: 65.94 ± 7.77; education: 10.82 ± 3.69) were explored. Decisional performances were further investigated in a sample of 42 PD patients (age: 66.4 ± 7.79 years; education: 9.90 ± 3.67 years). Results showed that PD patients made a higher number of risky decisions when compared to healthy controls, depending on the characteristics of the decisional situation. Furthermore, the number of risky choices was significantly related to the posology of dopaminergic medications and EFs. From present findings, several clinical implications can follow, considering that DM is fundamental for patients’ wellbeing and autonomy.
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