Neurocognitive Predictors of Understanding of Intentions in Parkinson Disease

Objectives:Theory of Mind (ToM), the ability to understand other people’s mental states, is essential in everyday social interactions. The relationship between cognitive domains and ToM impairment in Parkinson disease (PD) has been receiving growing attention with ambiguous findings. The objective of the current study was to ascertain which cognitive domain predicts understanding of intentions and the impact of PD-specific clinical measures on ToM performance. A secondary aim was to evaluate whether cognitive impairment mediates the relationship between severity of illness and ToM impairment.Methods:Fifty-one nondemented patients with idiopathic PD, ranging from early to advanced stages, were enrolled. A comprehensive neurocognitive battery and 2 ToM tasks (Hinting Task and Comic Strip Task) were administered during the patients’ best “on” medication state.Results:Only the task of measuring working memory capacity was significantly associated with both ToM tasks (Hinting Task Spearman rank correlation [rs...