The Effects Of Lesions From Basal Ganglia And Frontal Lobe On Working Memory And Learning Ability

Objectives:To explore the effects of basal ganglia lesion and frontal lobe lesion on working memory and learning ability in order to provide therapeutic strategy for patients with brain damage.Method:Twenty-eight patients with brain damage which contained 12 cases of frontal lobe lesions,8 cases of left basal ganglia lesions and 8 cases of right basal ganglia lesions were collected in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from March to August in 2007.Ten cases without brain damage were used as control group.All objects were evaluated with Mini-Mental State Examination(MMSE),Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised(WMS-R),Trail Making Tests(TMT)of part A and part B,Tower of Hanoi(TOH-1——TOH-d——TOH-s——TOH-2) and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test(WCST-1——WCST-d——WCST-s——WCST-2).Results:①The scores in two items about calculation and recall of MMSE,all items about attention function and short-term memory of WMS-R,TMT of part A and part B were significantly lower in patients with frontal lobe lesion than that in control group.②The scores in items about calculation and recall of MMSE,three items about attention function,logical memory and visual paired associates of WMS-R,TMT of part A and part B were significantly lower in patients with left basal ganglia lesion than that in control group.③The scores in one item about recall of MMSE,three items about attention function,logical memory and visual paired associates of WMS-R,TMT of part B were remarkably lower in patients with right basal ganglia lesion than that in control group.The scores in digit span of WMS-R in patients with right basal ganglia lesion were remarkably lower than that in control group and were significantly higher than that in patients with frontal lobe lesion or with left basal ganglia lesion respectively.④The scores before training in TOH and WCST in patients with frontal lobe lesion and basal ganglia lesions were significantly different from control group.The scores before training in trails to complete first category of WCST were significantly higher in patients with frontal lobe lesion than that in patients with basal ganglia lesions.⑤The accuracy and scores in TOH after training were significantly higher than that before training in patients with basal ganglia lesions.The percent errors,percent perseverative responses and conceptual level responses in WCST after training were significantly improved in patients with basal ganglia lesions as compared with patients with frontal lobe lesion.⑥The scores of TOH and percent perseverative responses of WCST after training also were significantly improved in patients with half basal ganglia lesions.Conclusion:The basal ganglia lesions and frontal lobe lesions may decrease working memory,but half basal ganglia lesions still can retain learning ability.These results suggest that early cognitive rehabilitation is very important for patients with basal ganglia lesions.