Elucidating the mechanism of abnormal processing of temporal information in patients with neurological disorders

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25461309
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Neurology
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Terao Yasuo 東京大学, 医学部附属病院, 講師 (20343139)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): HANAJIMA Ritsuko 北里大学, 神経内科, 診療准教授 (80396738)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 時間認知 / 時間再生 / 時間的統合 / 大脳基底核 / 小脳 / 神経疾患 / パーキンソン病

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Previous studies suggest that temporal information processing is abnormal in patients with neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease (PD). We used three tasks to elucidate and characterize the abnormal processing. One tasks was to compare the duration of two sounds (S1 and S2) presented in succession. Another was to reproduce the duration of sound just presented by pressing a button for the same duration of time. The third was to tap the keyboard in synchrony with the tones (duration: 50 ms) that were regularly presented with an interval of 200ms to 5000ms. In all three tasks, performance differed between PD patients and age-mathced normal subjects. We suggest that processing of temporal information is different between PD patients and normal subjects, especially when the time to be processed has a duration longer and shorter than several seconds.

Free Research Field

神経内科学、神経生理学