Objectives Learning as measured by eyeblink classical conditioning is preserved in patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, but severely affected in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy. We here sought to clarify whether procedural learning is impaired in multiple system atrophy (MSA), and whether it may be helpful for the differentiation of parkinsonian syndromes.

Design We investigated learning using (1) eyeblink classical conditioning with a delay (interstimulus interval 0 ms) and a trace (600 ms) paradigm and (2) a serial reaction time task.

Setting Participants were recruited from academic research centres.

Participants 11 patients with MSA and 11 healthy controls.

Results Implicit learning in eyeblink classical conditioning (acquisition of conditioned responses) as well as the serial reaction time task measures of implicit learning (reaction time change) are impaired in patients with MSA as compared with controls, whereas explicit learning as measured by the sequence recall of the serial reaction time task is relatively preserved.

Analysis We hypothesise that the learning deficits of patients with MSA are due to lesions of cerebellar and connected brainstem areas.

Conclusions A retrospective synopsis of these novel data on patients with MSA and groups of patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and progressive supranuclear palsy studied earlier suggest that eyeblink classical conditioning may contribute to the early differentiation of atypical Parkinson syndromes from idiopathic Parkinson's disease. This hypothesis should be tested in a prospective trial.