Spatial and Temporal High Processing of Visual and Auditory Stimuli in Cervical Dystonia

Abstract

ObjectiveInvestigation of spatial and temporal cognitive processing in idiopathic cervical dystonia (CD) by means of specific tasks based on perception in time and space domains of visual and auditory stimuli.BackgroundPrevious psychophysiological studies have investigated temporal and spatial characteristics of neural processing of sensory stimuli (mainly somatosensorial and visual), whereas the definition of such processing at higher cognitive level has not been sufficiently addressed. The impairment of time and space processing is likely driven by basal ganglia dysfunction. However, other cortical and subcortical areas, including cerebellum, may also be involved.MethodsWe tested 21 subjects with CD and 22 age-matched healthy controls with 4 recognition tasks exploring visuo-spatial, audio-spatial, visuo-temporal, and audio-temporal processing. Dystonic subjects were subdivided in three groups according to the head movement pattern type (lateral: Laterocollis, rotation: Torticollis) as well as the presence of tremor (Tremor).ResultsWe found significant alteration of spatial processing in Laterocollis subgroup compared to controls, whereas impairment of temporal processing was observed in Torticollis subgroup compared to controls.ConclusionOur results suggest that dystonia is associated with a dysfunction of temporal and spatial processing for visual and auditory stimuli that could underlie the well-known abnormalities in sequence learning. Moreover, we suggest that different movement pattern type might lead to different dysfunctions at cognitive level within dystonic population.

Biased Visuospatial Attention in Cervical Dystonia

“…The present findings are consistent with preliminary evidence (Chillemi et al, 2017) supporting the idea that, while sensory abnormality might be mainly present in LC patients, higher level cognitive impairment might specifically affect TC patients. In details, in our previous study (Chillemi et al, 2017), we observed that patients with TC were less accurate than patients with LC in judging the temporal duration of visual stimuli. Relevant to this finding, the cerebellum seem to play a critical role in temporal attention processing (Bares et al, 2007(Bares et al, , 2011Bares, Lungu, Husárová, & Gescheidt, 2010;Husarova et al, 2011).…”

Neural Correlates of Abnormal Temporal Discrimination in Unaffected Relatives of Cervical Dystonia Patients

“…The involvement of areas related to motor planning, learning, movement coordination, saccades, executive function, cross-modal association and emotion, suggests a multi-network dysfunction manifestation due to (as yet unidentified) gene carriage in unaffected relatives of CD patients. Dysfunction in these regions is consistent with CD pathophysiology ( Muller et al, 2005 ; Chillemi et al, 2017 ) and our results thus support the plausible concept of susceptibility gene carriage in these unaffected relatives.…”

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of Posterior Parietal Cortex Modulates Line-Length Estimation but Not Illusory Depth Perception

“…To verify the induction of a neglect-like bias after rTMS, participants were also tested on a line length estimation task (i.e., the Landmark Task, LT). Line length estimation is indeed a very sensitive and reliable task for the assessment of modulation of visuospatial attention (Learmonth et al, 2015) in neurological patients (Ricci et al, 2004, 2014, 2016; Savazzi et al, 2007; Chillemi et al, 2017a,b; Palermo et al, 2018) and healthy participants (Fierro et al, 2000; Ricci et al, 2012; Salatino et al, 2014).…”