Lower Frequency of co-Morbid Medical Disorders Related to Poor Impulse Control in Parkinson's than Alzheimer's Disease.

Parkinson's disease is associated with progressive degeneration of mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons that are involved in reward-based behavior learning, including rewarding effects of food consumption and drugs of abuse. The importance of this pathway in development of addictive behaviors led us to hypothesize that medical disorders related to poor impulse control may occur less frequently among patients with Parkinson's disease than those with other progressive neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. Retrospective cross-sectional study of all patients treated for Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease in a community based clinic during a two-year period.

Past Cigarette Smoking Is More Common among Those with Cholinergic Than Noncholinergic Dementias.

Background. Patients with progressive dementing disorders associated with cortical cholinergic dysfunction gradually develop cholinergic deficits many years before symptom onset and may begin to smoke cigarettes during midlife as a form of self-medication. The aim of this study was to compare self-reported past smoking rates between those with and without cholinergic dementias, to determine if those who developed cholinergic dementias were more likely to smoke during midlife than those who did not.