A loud auditory stimulus overcomes voluntary movement limitation in cervical dystonia

Patients with cervical dystonia (CD) present with an impaired performance of voluntary neck movements, which are usually slow and limited. We hypothesized that such abnormality could involve defective preparation for task execution. Therefore, we examined motor preparation in CD patients using the S...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2012-10, Vol.7 (10), p.e46586-e46586
Main Authors: Serranová, Tereza, Jech, Robert, Martí, Maria José, Modreanu, Raluca, Valldeoriola, Francesc, Sieger, Tomáš, Růžička, Evžen, Valls-Solé, Josep
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Adult
Aged
Analysis
Auditory defects
Biology
Brain research
Care and treatment
Case-Control Studies
Clinical trials
Dystonia
Electrical stimuli
Electromyography
Female
Head Movements
Humans
Kinematics
Latency
Loudness Perception
Male
Medicine
Middle Aged
Motor neurons
Motor task performance
Movement disorders
Muscles
Músculs
Neck
Neurologia
Neurology
Neurosciences
Parkinson's disease
Patients
Perception
Psychomotor Performance
Reaction Time
Reaction time task
Synchronism
Synchronization
Test procedures
Torticollis - physiopathology
Trastorns motors
Variance analysis
Young Adult
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Summary:Patients with cervical dystonia (CD) present with an impaired performance of voluntary neck movements, which are usually slow and limited. We hypothesized that such abnormality could involve defective preparation for task execution. Therefore, we examined motor preparation in CD patients using the StartReact method. In this test, a startling auditory stimulus (SAS) is delivered unexpectedly at the time of the imperative signal (IS) in a reaction time task to cause a faster execution of the prepared motor programme. We expected that CD patients would show an abnormal StartReact phenomenon. Fifteen CD patients and 15 age matched control subjects (CS) were asked to perform a rotational movement (RM) to either side as quick as possible immediately after IS perception (a low intensity electrical stimulus to the II finger). In randomly interspersed test trials (25%) a 130 dB SAS was delivered simultaneously with the IS. We recorded RMs in the horizontal plane with a high speed video camera (2.38 ms per frame) in synchronization with the IS. The RM kinematic-parameters (latency, velocity, duration and amplitude) were analyzed using video-editing software and screen protractor. Patients were asked to rate the difficulty of their RMs in a numerical rating scale. In control trials, CD patients executed slower RMs (repeated measures ANOVA, p
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0046586