PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Each 15 patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex, the medial temporal lobe, or with Parkinson's disease were compared with each other and with two groups of education and age-matched, non-brain damaged control patients on a number of cognitive tests, with emphasis on measuring explicit and implicit memory functions. The tests covered intelligence, attention and concentration, executive functions, temporo-spatial memory, priming, procedural, episodic, and meta-memory. The results obtained deviate in a number of ways from assumptions frequently made. While medial temporal lobe damaged patients performed as expected - poorest in all explicit memory tests, Parkinson patients, in the initial phase of illness manifestation, already had major mnestic problems. Some deficits were even seen in priming tests. Deficits in Parkinson patients may be enhanced by overly cautious reaction tendencies. Prefrontally damaged patients performed quite normal in a number of tests, however, they displayed problems in attention-related functions. Our results point to substantial differences in the cognitive behavior of prefrontals and Parkinson's and demonstrate that unilateral damage of medial temporal lobe structures may already have severe effects on memory. Furthermore, age can significantly influence cognitive performance, especially in combination with brain pathology.