Assessments of action semantics consistently reveal markers of Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, neurophysiological signatures of the domain remain under-examined in this population, especially under conditions that allow patients to process stimuli without stringent time constraints. Here we assessed event-related potentials and time-frequency modulations in healthy individuals (HPs) and PD patients during a delayed-response semantic judgment task involving related and unrelated action-picture pairs. Both groups had shorter response times for related than for unrelated trials, but they exhibited discrepant electrophysiological patterns. HPs presented significantly greater N400 amplitudes as well as theta enhancement and mu desynchronization for unrelated relative to related trials. Conversely, N400 and theta modulations were abolished in the patients, who further exhibited a contralateralized cluster in the mu range. None of these patterns were associated with the participants’ cognitive status. Our results suggest that PD involves multidimensional neurophysiological disruptions during action-concept processing, even under task conditions that elicit canonical behavioral effects. New constraints thus emerge for translational neurocognitive models in this population.

中文翻译：

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帕金森病动作语义处理过程中的电生理改变

动作语义评估始终揭示帕金森病 (PD) 的标志。然而，该领域的神经生理学特征在该人群中仍未得到充分检查，特别是在允许患者在没有严格时间限制的情况下处理刺激的条件下。在这里，我们在涉及相关和不相关的动作图片对的延迟响应语义判断任务中评估了健康个体（HP）和 PD 患者的事件相关电位和时频调制。两组对相关试验的反应时间比对不相关试验的反应时间更短，但他们表现出不同的电生理模式。与相关试验相比，不相关的 HP 表现出显着更大的 N400 振幅以及 theta 增强和 mu 去同步。相反，N400 和 theta 调制在患者中被取消，他们进一步表现出 mu 范围内的对侧簇。这些模式均与参与者的认知状态无关。我们的结果表明，即使在引发典型行为效应的任务条件下，PD 也涉及动作概念处理过程中的多维神经生理学破坏。因此，该人群的转化神经认知模型出现了新的限制。