Laterality in Parkinson's disease may predict motor and visual imagery abilities.

Laterality in Parkinson's disease may predict motor and visual imagery abilities. Funct Neurol. 2018 Apr/Jun;33(2):106-111 Authors: Lo Monaco MR, Laudisio A, Fusco D, Vetrano DL, Ricciardi D, Delle Donne V, Proietti F, Zuccalà G, Silveri MC Abstract Experimental evidence suggests that motor imagery (MI) engages the same neural substrates supporting actual motor activities and is likely impaired when such substrates are damaged, as in Parkinson's disease (PD). MI intuitively relies on visual imagery (VI), because mental simulations of physical movements depend on the visual retrieval of these movements. Although VI is generally considered a right hemispheric function, the hemispheric dominance of MI is still in dispute. Disparities in sidedness of motor disturbances are a distinctive feature of PD, and recent findings indicate that such disparities may similarly characterize cognition. Specifically, the deficits observed may depend upon which hemisphere is principally involved. Essentially, MI and VI are cognitive tasks subject to differential impairment and reflecting the prevalence of hemispheric impairment in PD. Motor imagery (assessed by the Vividness of Motor Imagery Questionnaire [VMIQ]) and VI (assessed by the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire [VVIQ] and Test of Visual Imagery Control [TVIC]) were examined in patients with asymmetric PD and in healthy elderly control subjects (HC group). VMIQ scores were similar in PD...
Source: Functional Neurology - Category: Neurology Tags: Funct Neurol Source Type: research