Functional imaging of the cerebellum and basal ganglia during predictive motor timing in early Parkinson's disease.
OBJECTIVE
The basal ganglia and the cerebellum have both emerged as important structures involved in the processing of temporal information.


METHODS
We examined the roles of the cerebellum and striatum in predictive motor timing during a target interception task in healthy individuals (HC group; n = 21) and in patients with early Parkinson's disease (early stage PD group; n = 20) using functional magnetic resonance imaging.


RESULTS
Despite having similar hit ratios, the PD failed more often than the HC to postpone their actions until the right moment and to adapt their behavior from one trial to the next. We found more activation in the right cerebellar lobule VI in HC than in early stage PD during successful trials. Successful trial-by-trial adjustments were associated with higher activity in the right putamen and lobule VI of the cerebellum in HC.


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that both the cerebellum and striatum are involved in predictive motor timing tasks. The cerebellar activity is associated exclusively with the postponement of action until the right moment, whereas both the cerebellum and striatum are needed for successful adaptation of motor actions from one trial to the next. We found a general ''hypoactivation'' of basal ganglia and cerebellum in early stage PD relative to HC, indicating that even in early stages of the PD there could be functional perturbations in the motor system beyond striatum.
First Department of Neurology, St. Anne's Teaching Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University Brno, Pekarska, Brno, Czech Republic.
Ivica
I
Husárová
Ovidiu V
OV
Lungu
Radek
R
Mareček
Michal
M
Mikl
Tomáš
T
Gescheidt
Petr
P
Krupa
Martin
M
Bareš
D000368:Aged; D059031:Anticipation, Psychological; D001479:Basal Ganglia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D009068:Movement; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity