Parkinson's disease. The possible relationship of laterality to dementia and neurochemical findings
L. K. Direnfeld, M. L. Albert, L. Volicer, P. J. Langlais, J. Marquis and E. Kaplan
We examined the relationship of disease laterality to neuropsychological
and neurochemical features in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease
(PD). We tested patients with PD, patients with Alzheimer's type of senile
dementia, and a control group neuropsychologically, and we determined their
CSF levels of homovanillic acid, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid,
3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol, 5-hydroxyindolacetic acid, serotonin, and
acetylcholinesterase. The patients with PD were divided into two groups
depending on the side of the body with greater disease involvement. Both
parkinsonian groups, those more affected on the left (group L) and those
more affected on the right (group R), were otherwise similar in all other
clinical and historical features. Group L patients showed greater
neuropsychological impairments than group R patients. Group L also had
significantly higher CSF levels of homovanillic acid and
acetylcholinesterase than group R. These findings of neuropsychological and
neurochemical differences between groups L and R suggest functional or
anatomic asymmetries of dopaminergic systems in the CNS.
