Visuospatial and visuoperceptual impairment in relation to global atrophy in Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients differed from controls of similar age in visuospatial and visuoperceptual functions at diagnosis moment, and these deficits have been shown to be neuropsychological markers of evolution to dementia. The aim of this study was to relate these dysfunctions with measures of brain. The sample of this study consisted of 92 PD patients and 36 healthy subjects matched by age, sex and education. All subjects were evaluated with Judgment of Line Orientation, Visual Form Discrimination and Facial Recognition Tests and magnetic resonance imaging at 3 Tesla. We found significant differences between patients and controls in all three tests and in the mean of cortical thickness, gray matter volume and ventricular system. All visuospatial and visuoperceptual tests correlated with the measures of global atrophy suggesting that they are reflecting the brain degeneration associated to PD.