Predictive motor timing performance dissociates between early diseases of the cerebellum and Parkinson's disease

• Authors: BAREŠ Martin; LUNGU Ovidiu; HUSÁROVÁ Ivica; GESCHEIDT Tomáš
• Year of publication: 2010
• Type: Article in Periodical
• Magazine / Source: The Cerebellum
• MU Faculty or unit: Faculty of Medicine
• Web: http://springerlink.com/content/n53049220212842h/?p=ecdb278dd47a4f27bfbb9ad357d54496&pi=13
• Field: Neurology, neurosurgery, neurosciences
• Keywords: cerebellum- basal ganglia- motor timing- essential tremor
• Description: We investigated four different groups: (1) patients with early Parkinson's disease (PD) (2) patients with sporadic spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) (3) patients with familial essential tremor (ET) and (4) matched healthy controls. We used a predictive motor-timing task that involved mediated interception of a moving target. The main results showed that PD group and arm ET subgroup did not significantly differ from the control group. SCA and head ET subjects (severe and mild cerebellar damage, respectively) were significantly worse at interception than the other two groups. The cerebellum plays an essential role in integrating incoming visual information with the motor output in a timely manner, and that ET is a heterogeneous entity that deserves increased attention from clinicians.

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