Parkinson's disease (PD), which is caused by degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain, results in a heterogeneous clinical picture including cognitive decline. Since the phasic signal of dopamine neurons is proposed to guide learning by signifying mismatches between subjects' expectations and external events, we here investigated whether akinetic-rigid PD patients without mild cognitive impairment exhibit difficulties in dealing with either relevant (requiring flexibility) or irrelevant (requiring stability) prediction errors. Following our previous study on flexibility and stability in prediction (Trempler et al. J Cogn Neurosci 29(2):298-309, 2017), we then assessed whether deficits would correspond with specific structural alterations in dopaminergic regions as well as in inferior frontal cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and the hippocampus. Twenty-one healthy controls and twenty-one akinetic-rigid PD patients on and off medication performed a task which required to serially predict upcoming items. Switches between predictable sequences had to be indicated via button press, whereas sequence omissions had to be ignored. Independent of the disease, midbrain volume was related to a general response bias to unexpected events, whereas right putamen volume correlated with the ability to discriminate between relevant and irrelevant prediction errors. However, patients compared with healthy participants showed deficits in stabilisation against irrelevant prediction errors, associated with thickness of right inferior frontal gyrus and left medial prefrontal cortex. Flexible updating due to relevant prediction errors was also affected in patients compared with controls and associated with right hippocampus volume. Dopaminergic medication influenced behavioural performance across, but not within the patients. Our exploratory study warrants further research on deficient prediction error processing and its structural correlates as a core of cognitive symptoms occurring already in early stages of the disease.
Keywords: Cognitive deficits; Grey matter; MRI; Parkinson’s disease; Prediction errors.