title: The mechanisms of movement control and time estimation in cervical dystonia patients.
abstract: Traditionally, the pathophysiology of cervical dystonia has been regarded mainly in relation to neurochemical abnormities in the basal ganglia. Recently, however, substantial evidence has emerged for cerebellar involvement. While the absence of neurological "cerebellar signs" in most dystonia patients may be considered at least provoking, there are more subtle indications of cerebellar dysfunction in complex, demanding tasks. Specifically, given the role of the cerebellum in the neural representation of time, in the millisecond range, dysfunction to this structure is considered to be of greater importance than dysfunction of the basal ganglia. In the current study, we investigated the performance of cervical dystonia patients on a computer task known to engage the cerebellum, namely, the interception of a moving target with changing parameters (speed, acceleration, and angle) with a simple response (pushing a button). The cervical dystonia patients achieved significantly worse results than a sample of healthy controls. Our results suggest that the cervical dystonia patients are impaired at integrating incoming visual information with motor responses during the prediction of upcoming actions, an impairment we interpret as evidence of cerebellar dysfunction.
authors.affiliation: Central European Institute of Technology, CEITEC MU, Behavioral and Social Neuroscience Research Group, Masaryk University, 625 00 Brno, Czech Republic ; First Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University and St. Anne's Teaching Hospital, 656 91 Brno, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Pavel
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Filip
authors.forename: Ovidiu V
authors.initials: OV
authors.lastname: Lungu
authors.forename: Daniel J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Shaw
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kasparek
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bareš
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001479:Basal Ganglia / Q000503:physiopathology; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000503:physiopathology; D004421:Dystonia / Q000151:congenital; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014103:Torticollis / Q000151:congenital* / Q000503:physiopathology