Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Parkinson's Disease is a movement disorder that is often accompanied by a range of non-motor symptoms, one of the most prevalent being cognitive dysfunction. People with Parkinson's Disease (PwP) exhibit deficits in the ability to detect and correct movement errors. They also have difficulty learning new movement strategies. These deficits have a significant impact on the ability to perform daily tasks and live independently. It has been proposed that PwP experience these deficits due to impaired programming of mental roadmaps of movement. Mental roadmaps are generated by the brain prior to initiating a movement. As the movement is performed, the brain compares it against the previously generated mental roadmap and adjusts the movement accordingly. We aim to further understand how PwP process mental roadmaps by using motor imagery (the imagination of movement), which makes roadmaps consciously available. In this study, PwP and healthy controls will first complete cognitive and motor test batteries. We will then collect electroencephalographic (EEG) activity from both groups during a motor tasks where participants imagine or physical perform finger tapping sequences. EEG analysis will focus on the time course of a brain rhythm that is associated with the successful programming of imagined and performed movements. Cognitive and motor test scores will be correlated with EEG activity. These findings will provide valuable insight into the time course of movement programming deficits in PwP and how to tailor movement based rehabilitation for PwP based on their symptom profiles.