Another study [Rektorova et al. 2005] assessed the cognitive functions of 41 PD patients in treatment with levodopa before and after 8 months of an add-on therapy with pramipexole or pergolide: any difference was found between cognitive performance at the baseline and after the therapy with dopamine agonists. A similar finding was reported by a study [Relja and Klepac, 2006] that evaluated a sample of 16 medicated PD patients during 12 months of treatment: patients treated with levodopa alone and patients receiving

pramipexole as add-on therapy to Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical levodopa did not cognitively differ at the baseline and at the follow-up neuropsychological assessment. Table 2. Studies investigating chronic cognitive effects of levodopa and dopamine agonists in PD. The order is chronological. These findings preliminary showed that: (1) chronic dopaminergic Tanespimycin molecular weight stimulation at least do not have Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical negative mid-term effects on cognitive functions of PD patients; (2) levodopa and dopamine agonists do not have differential mid-term effects on cognitive functions of PD patients. In these studies patients

were followed only for brief periods (from 6 months to 2 years), while dopaminergic drugs may be taken by PD patients for many years: this suggests that the long-term Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical effect of chronic dopaminergic stimulation with levodopa or dopamine agonists on cognitive functions of PD patients is actually almost unknown. Discussion This article aimed at reviewing Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical empirical

evidence on the cognitive effects of dopaminergic drugs in PD. The study of cognition in patients with PD is of particular interest because the spatiotemporal progression of dopamine depletion during the course of the disease provides a special model for assessing dopaminergic effects on neural systems with differential baseline dopamine levels. The interaction between degrees Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of dopamine depletion (dorsolateral versus orbital frontostriatal circuits; left hemisphere versus right hemisphere) and different dopamine replacement therapies may produce different cognitive profiles at different stages of the disease: this complex clinical picture could partially Org 27569 explain why findings of studies on cognitive functions of PD patients are usually heterogeneous also within the same cognitive domain. Considering different possibilities of empirical investigation of cognitive effects of dopaminergic drugs in PD in relation to drug (levodopa or dopamine agonist), temporal interval (acute or chronic) and cognitive domain, we found that empirical evidence is almost focused on acute effects of levodopa administration on prefrontal executive functions.