Abstract

Colorado Human Research Committee. We tested 30 PD patients and 19 healthy seniors matched for age, education, and scores on the North American Adult Reading Test (NAART), an estimate of premorbid verbal IQ (1). The demographics of seniors and PD patients are shown in Table 1. PD patients were recruited from the Colorado Neurological Institute. All patients were receiving daily L-Dopa preparations, with some supplemented with D2 receptor agonists and/or selegiline (monoamine activity enhancer), and were stable on their medication dose for at least 2 months. Participating senior controls were either the spouses of PD patients or were recruited from the Boulder Senior Center. Exclusionary criteria were as follows: • significant medical history not related directly to PD (e.g. stroke, head injury, clinical de-mentia, epilepsy); • concurrent illness such as schizophrenia and manic depression; • documented or suspected history of drug abuse and/or alcoholism; • PD patients with advanced symptoms (stage IV or V in the Hoehn and Yahr rating scale); 1 Cognitive Reinforcement Learning in Parkinson’s Disease Frank, Seeberger & O’Reilly 2

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