Dopamine agonists modulate the neural network of reward anticipation in Parkinson's disease patients

Dopamine agonists (DA) are widely prescribed to treat Parkinson's disease (PD) but have been found to cause impulse control disorders such as pathological gambling. In a previous study, we found that administration of DA pramipexole in young healthy adults changed the local activity and the connectivity pattern of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) during reward anticipation. To assess effects of long term DA treatment functional magnetic resonance imaging was used in PD patients in medication-off state (PD-off), the same group of patients in medication-on state (PD-on), and a matched group of healthy controls without…