title: Impairment of movement initiation and execution but not preparation in idiopathic dystonia.
abstract: Imaging studies have reported impaired activation of the striatum and their frontal projection sites in dsytonia, areas which are considered to play a role in motor preparation, movement initiation and execution. The aim of this study was to investigate the processes of motor preparation, response initiation and execution in patients with idiopathic torsion dystonia (ITD). We assessed 12 patients with ITD and 12 age-matched controls on a number of reaction time (RT) tasks that differed in degree of motor preparation possible. Subjects performed a visual simple RT (SRT) task, an uncued four-choice reaction time (CRT) task and a fully precued four-choice RT task. A stimulus 1-stimulus 2 (S1-S2) paradigm was used. The warning signal/precue (S1) preceded the imperative stimulus (S2) by either 0 ms (no warning signal or precue) 200 ms, 800 ms, 1,600 ms or 3,200 ms. The patients with ITD had significantly slower RTs and movement times than normals across all RT tasks. The unwarned SRT trials were significantly faster than the uncued CRT trials for both groups. For both groups, precued CRTs were significantly faster than the uncued CRTs. The results show that while response initiation and execution are significantly slower in patients with ITD than normals, movement preparation is not quantitatively or qualitatively different. The results are discussed in relation to previous imaging, behavioural and electrophysiological studies and models of fronto-striatal dysfunction in ITD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Neurology, Institute of Neurology, The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK. m.jahanshahi@ion.ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jahanshahi
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rowe
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fuller
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001479:Basal Ganglia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D020821:Dystonic Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*