LEARNING AND FORGETTING PROCESSES IN PARKINSONS-DISEASE - A MODEL-BASED APPROACH TO DISENTANGLING STORAGE, RETENTION AND RETRIEVAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Learning and forgetting a prose passage was studied in 20 patients wit h Parkinson's disease and in 20 normal control subjects by means of st ochastic models, with the aim of identifying the learning and retainin g abilities that are affected by Parkinson's disease. Results suggeste d that Parkinson's disease patients are impaired in developing automat ic processing both during learning and retaining, while functions that require active attention are spared. The automatic/intentional dissoc iation, which is the hallmark of motor disturbance in Parkinson's dise ase, extends to memory abilities, and, on the grounds of neuroanatomic al, neurochemical and neurophysiological correlates, suggests that the memory deficit in Parkinson's disease may be contingent on a dysfunct ion of the medial prefrontal-cingulate cortex. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scien ce Ltd.