The Mechanisms of Movement Control and Time Estimation in Cervical Dystonia Patients

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Authors

FILIP Pavel LUNGU Ovidiu V. SHAW Daniel Joel KAŠPÁREK Tomáš BAREŠ Martin

Year of publication 2013
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Neural Plasticity
MU Faculty or unit

Central European Institute of Technology

Citation
Web http://www.hindawi.com/journals/np/2013/908741/
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/908741
Field Neurology, neurosurgery, neurosciences
Keywords cervical dystonia; cerebellar signs; basal ganglia
Attached files
Description 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.
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