Our results suggest that the PINK1−/− rat can serve as an appropriate preclinical model for investigating the early neurobiological mechanisms associated with cognitive functioning also observed in human PD (Ferris et al., 2018; Kelm-Nelson et al., 2021; Pinizzotto et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2022; Soto et al., 2024). Here, PINK1 is linked to Parkinson disease.