Basal ganglia dysfunction, working memory, and sentence comprehension in patients with Parkinson's disease

To investigate the role of the basal ganglia in working memory and sentence comprehension. 14 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) were administered experimental measures of semantic and phonological working memory. and a m easure of sentence comprehension. while receiving dopaminergic medications and after a period of withdrawal from these medications. An age- and educat ion- matched control group (N = 14) received the same measures. Comparison with control subjects revealed deficits in patients with PD in sentence pro cessing regardless of medication status, but no deficits in working memory. In contrast to previous studies, withdrawal of dopaminergic medications ha d no significant impact on task- related working memory functions or on sen tence comprehension. Results suggest that basal ganglia dysfunction does no t solely account for sentence comprehension deficits seen in PD. (C) 2001 E lsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.