Parkinson's Disease and Memory
Parkinson's disease involves both damage to the basal ganglia and certain memory dysfunctions, suggesting that the basal ganglia are involved in specific types of memory. Those who have this disease have problems with both their working memory and spatial memory.
Most people can instantly and easily use visual-spatial memory to remember locations and pictures, but a person with Parkinson's disease would find this difficult. He or she would also have trouble encoding this visual and spatial information into long-term memory. This suggests that the basal ganglia work in both encoding and recalling spatial information.
People with Parkinson's disease display working memory impairment during sequence tasks and tasks involving events in time. They also have difficulty in knowing how to use their memory, such as when to change strategies or maintain a train of thought.
Read more about this topic: Neuroanatomy Of Memory, Cortical Structures, Damage To The Cortex
Famous quotes containing the words parkinson, disease and/or memory:
“The Law of Triviality ... briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.”
—C. Northcote Parkinson (1909–1993)
“Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“A man’s memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become.”
—Fawn M. Brodie (1915–1981)