Motor Skill Learning in People With Parkinson's Disease

This study will compare brain changes in people with Parkinson's disease with those of normal control subjects while they learn motor skills. People with Parkinson's disease sometimes have trouble learning new skills, but it is not known why. This study will use repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), nerve conduction studies, and electroencephaolography (EEG) to look for differences in the way the brain changes with learning in people with Parkinson's disease.

Healthy normal volunteers and people with Parkinson's disease who are between 21 and 80 years of age may be eligible for this study. Participants undergo the following procedures in five visits to the NIH Clinical Center:

Visit 1

Medical and neurological examination.

Visit 2

Motor training. Participants perform a pinching movement once every other second, timed to a metronome, during rTMS. For TMS, a wire coil is held on the subject's scalp. A brief electrical current is passed through the coil, creating a magnetic pulse that stimulates the brain. The subject hears a click and may feel a pulling sensation on the skin under the coil. There may be a twitch in the muscles of the face, arm or leg. rTMS involves repeated magnetic pulses delivered in short bursts of impulses.

Visits 3 and 4

Brain physiology studies using rTMS, nerve conduction studies (electrical nerve stimulation) and EEG. A nerve at the subject's wrist is stimulated with electrical impulses to measure the speed with which nerves conduct electrical impulses and the strength of the connection between the nerve and the muscle. rTMS is performed for 20 minutes. The EEG measures the electrical activity of the brain (brain waves). For this test, electrodes (metal discs) are placed on the scalp with a conductive gel and the brain waves are recorded while the subject moves his or her thumb briskly for 20 minutes.

Visit 5

Subjects undergo rTMS for 20 minutes and have an EEG.

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