PROCEDURAL MEMORY AND PARKINSONS-DISEASE

A detailed analysis of the mnestic deficits associated with Parkinson' s disease (PD) contributes to explaining the cognitive disorders and t heir well documented consequences. This study was designed to show tha t, in PD declarative as well as procedural memory is severely impaired . Three tests designed to explore this aspect of mnestic functioning w ere proposed to a group of 16 parkinsonian patients whose motoricity w as controlled: inverted reading, braille reading, sound form associati on. The results obtained, compared with those of young and aged contro ls, show that PD is associated with marked deficits in both declarativ e and procedural memory. Declarative memory impairment was similar to that observed in the control population (healthy elderly subjects, age -matched with the PD patients) but more marked in PD subjects. The pro cedural memory deficit was linked with age and pathology. Procedural m emory involves a variety of processing modules dedicated to the type o f information (visual, auditive, tactile codes). The deficits observed were more like a loss of automatism than procedural impairment strict o sensu ('knowing how'). It would be worth pursuing research by studyi ng akinesia and motor disorders from the angle of automatic memory imp airment.