Cognitive Control in Parkinson's Disease

Summary

Cognitive action control allows resisting to irrelevant information to easily produce desired goal-directed behaviors. This cognitive process is disturbed in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the neural signature of this impairment has not been clarified yet. Several studies using electroencéphalography (EEG) showed that conflict situations in healthy participants are inevitably associated with a power increase of neuronal oscillations in the theta frequency band (\~4-8Hz) in the medial frontal cortex (MFC). Conflict situations are also associated with theta functional connectivity between the MFC and task-relevant brain areas. The theta power increase and connectivity are respectively interpreted as a marker of the integration of conflicting information and as a candidate for communication between the brain areas involved in implementing cognitive action control. The objective of this project is to test the hypothesis that the deficit of cognitive action control observed in PD comes from a lack of integration of the conflict information and / or communication of this information between the MFC and other task-relevant brain areas. Investigators willl study this cognitive process using a classic conflict task, the Simon task, and by recording brain activity using high density EEG coupled with cortical source connectivity analyses. The results will allow us to evaluate whether theta oscillations can serve as a marker of cognitive control disorders in Parkinson's disease.

Conditions

• Parkinson's Disease

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Simon Task with high-density EEG recording

The scalp electrical activity will be collected by a 256-electrodes EEG montage (Electrical Geodesics Inc). During the task, participants will be asked to answer on a right or left button according to the color of a circle (yellow or blue) presented on the left or right side of a screen. Participants will have to ignore the stimulus position and respond only according to its color. This leads to two experimental conditions When the color of the circle and its position indicate the same answer, the situation is congruent and the answer is facilitated. Conversely, when they indicate two opposite responses, a conflict between the two alternative actions appears and must be resolved to provide a correct answer. This situation is said to be incongruent. At each trial, the stimulus is shown to the left or right of a central fixation cross. The participants then have to answer on a right or left button. At each trial, the reaction time and the accuracy of the response will be collected.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Université de Rennes, Laboratoire du Traitement du Signal et de l'Image (LTSI)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Institut des Neurosciences Cliniques de Rennes (INCR)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Association des Parkinsoniens d'Ille-et-Vilaine (APIV)

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Rennes University Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jean-François Houvenaghel · Rennes University Hospital

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-06-06

Primary Completion

2022-03-10

Completion

2022-03-10

Countries

• France

Study Locations