Is there a "subcortical" profile of attentional dysfunction? A comparison of patients with Huntington's and Parkinson's diseases on a global-local focused attention task.

Overview

This study investigated focused attention in two subcortical degenerative disorders by examining the performance of patients with Huntington's disease (HD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) on a task utilizing global-local stimuli. Participants were presented with global-local figures and were instructed to focus their attention on either the global or local level. Stimuli were either "consistent", with the same form at the global and local levels, or "inconsistent", with different forms at the global and local levels. It was found that response times (RTs) of patients with PD were comparable to those of similarly-aged controls regardless of stimulus consistency. In contrast, patients with HD demonstrated disproportionately longer RTs to inconsistent stimuli relative to their age-matched control group. Difference scores between RTs for inconsistent versus consistent stimuli were not correlated with overall level of dementia or disease severity for either the HD or PD group. These results provide further evidence for the heterogeneity of attentional dysfunction among subcortical degenerative illnesses.