MD Joyce P. M. van der Vegt has together with colleagues and collaborators at the DRCMR, in Holland, and in Germany reported remarkable brain responses in patients with Parkinson's disease during a gambling task.

In this study of newly diagnosed and untreated patients, attenuated brain activation compared to normal volunteers, was measured with functional MRI during reward processing. This effect likely influences the behavior of patients, and their well-known tendency to develop gambling addictions.

The scientific paper is published in the high-impact journal Brain, February 2013. It was conducted in the context of the ContAct research project.

A popular account of the study is available in Danish.

Full reference and link to the published article:

Attenuated neural response to gamble outcomes in drug-naive patients with Parkinson's disease
Joyce P. M. van der Vegt; Oliver J. Hulme; Simone Zittel; Kristoffer H. Madsen; Michael M. Weiss; Carsten Buhmann; Bastiaan R. Bloem; Alexander Munchau; Hartwig R. Siebner
Brain 2013; doi: 10.1093/brain/awt027. PDF