From anticipation to impulsivity in Parkinson’s disease

Anticipatory actions require to keep track of elapsed time and inhibitory control. These cognitive functions could be impacted in Parkinson’s disease (iPD). To test this hypothesis, a saccadic reaction time task was used where a visual warning stimulus (WS) predicted the occurrence of an imperative one (IS) appearing after a short delay. In the implicit condition, subjects were not informed about the duration of the delay, disfavoring anticipatory behavior but leaving inhibitory control unaltered. In the explicit condition, delay duration was cued. This should favor anticipatory behavior and perhaps alter inhibitory control. This hypothesis was tested in controls (N = 18) and age-matched iPD patients (N = 20; ON and OFF L-DOPA). We found that the latency distribution of saccades before the IS was bimodal. The 1(st) mode weakly depended on temporal information and was more prominent in iPD. Saccades in this mode were premature and could result of a lack of inhibition. The 2(nd) mode covaried with cued duration suggesting that these movements were genuine anticipatory saccades. The explicit condition increased the probability of anticipatory saccades before the IS in controls and iPD(ON) but not iPD(OFF) patients. Furthermore, in iPD patients the probability of sequences of 1(st) mode premature responses increased. In conclusion, the triggering of a premature saccade or the initiation of a controlled anticipatory one could be conceptualized as the output of two independent stochastic processes. Altered time perception and increased motor impulsivity could alter the balance between these two processes in favor of the latter in iPD, particularly OFF L-Dopa.