Can there be learning potential in Parkinson’s disease? A comparison with healthy older adults

ABSTRACT

Patients with Parkinson’s disease may show certain cognitive impairments, although it is unclear how these deficits can affect their learning potential. The study aims to use the testing-the-limits technique to compare the potential for cognitive plasticity in a group of Patients with Parkinson’s disease (N = 33) and a group of healthy older adults (N = 33). Sixty-six participants performed verbal learning test to analyze the learning potential. Repeated-measures analysis of variance showed significant main effects of time, group, and the interaction. There is a lower learning potential in subjects with Parkinson’s disease; however, those still maintain a certain capacity for learning and, therefore, for cognitive plasticity.

KEYWORDS:

• ‘Testing-the-limits
• learning potential
• plasticity
• Parkinson’s disease
• cognitive impairments
• aging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad [PSI-2016-77405-R].

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad [PSI-2016-77405-R].