Manual Interception of a Moving Target in Persons with Parkinson’s Disease after a Course of Dry Immersion

This study assesses the effect of a course of ground-based microgravity modeled with seven 45-min dry immersion (DI) sessions in individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) (n = 10) on the performance of the “interception of a moving target” (IMT) test. The proportion of accurate target interceptions, delay and advance in interception, and mean time of delay and advance have been estimated. It has been established that, in contrast to the choice reaction time and discrimination reaction time tasks, the DI course had no effect on the interception accuracy (the percentage of accurate interceptions ranged from 50% before the DI course to 54% 2 weeks after it, p > 0.05, Friedman test), the percentage of delays and advances, and the mean time of delays and advances (p > 0.05, Friedman test). A possible explanation for this result may be a better clinical condition of individuals with PD owing to strict inclusion criteria in the study, as well as insufficient complexity of the manual interception task of a moving target and preserved reactivity to dynamic stimuli in individuals with PD.