Multi-Joint Reaching Movements and Eye-Hand Tracking in Cerebellar Incoordination: Investigation of a Patient with Complete Loss of Purkinje Cells

Becker, Werner J.; Morrice, Betty-Lynn; Clark, Arthur W.; Lee, R.G.

doi:10.1017/s0317167100032194

Cited by 64 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Similarly, for arm movements, Holmes (1922) described disorders and variability in their direction, range and rate. In agreement, recent studies of multijoint arm movements in cerebellar patients have found increased trial-to-trial variability in hand trajectories in throwing (Becker et al 1990;Timmann et al 1999Timmann et al , 2000 in reaching (Becker et al 1991;Day et al 1998), and in a pointing task (Bastian et al 1996) and increased variability in the timing of finger opening in throwing (Timmann et al 1999(Timmann et al , 2000.…”

Section: Increased Variability Is Associated With Lack Of Skill and Wsupporting

confidence: 65%

Increased Variability in Finger Position Occurs Throughout Overarm Throws Made by Cerebellar and Unskilled Subjects

Timmann

Citron

Watts

et al. 2001

Journal of Neurophysiology

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We investigated the ability of cerebellar patients and unskilled subjects to control finger grip position and the amplitude of finger opening during a multijoint overarm throw. This situation is of interest because the appropriate finger control requires predicting the magnitude of back forces from the ball on the finger throughout the throw and generating the appropriate level and rate of change of finger flexor torque to oppose the back force. Cerebellar patients, matched controls, and unskilled subjects threw tennis balls and tennis-sized balls of different weights. In all cases angular positions of five arm segments in three dimension were recorded at 1,000 Hz with the search-coil technique as subjects threw from a seated position. When the hand was stationary, cerebellar patients showed a normal ability to grip the ball and open the fingers and drop the ball. In contrast, in overarm throws where a back force occurred on the fingers, cerebellar patients showed an abnormally large variability in amplitude of the change in finger position when gripping, in amplitude of finger opening, and in amplitude of the change in finger position 10 ms after ball release. This was not due to more trial-to-trial variation in throwing speed. When throwing balls of increasing weights, both controls and cerebellar patients had increasing finger flexions after ball release that indicated that, on average, both scaled finger force in proportion to ball weight during the throw. Unlike skilled controls, cerebellar patients showed a small (<20 degrees ) increase in the amplitude of finger opening with balls of increasing weight. However, neither the increase in variability of finger position nor the increase in finger amplitude with balls of increasing weight were unique cerebellar signs because both were observed to various degrees in unskilled throwers. It is concluded that in the absence of either normal cerebellar function or skill, the central neural activity that controls finger opening in throwing can increase finger flexor force to oppose an increase in back force from heavier balls and can open the fingers but cannot control finger force or finger opening precisely and consistently from throw to throw. These results fit with the idea that cerebellar disorders are greater in multijoint than single-joint movements because control of force is more complicated. They are also consistent with the hypothesis that the cerebellum produces skill in movement by reducing variability in the timing and force of muscle contractions.

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Section: Increased Variability Is Associated With Lack Of Skill and Wsupporting

confidence: 65%

Increased Variability in Finger Position Occurs Throughout Overarm Throws Made by Cerebellar and Unskilled Subjects

Timmann

Citron

Watts

et al. 2001

Journal of Neurophysiology

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“…Frequently mentioned are slight visuo-manual tracking delays, errors of direction, velocity, acceleration and deceleration, and of timing of muscle contraction. 510 Presumed to be present in simple movements, these various errors are proposed to combine to cause the relatively greater errors seen in the compound movements (cf Becker et al 6 ). This position would seem to have been supported by the finding in laboratory animals of cerebellar neural discharge that leads movement onset and that correlates with the direction, position, velocity, and force of movement, as if it played a direct role in controlling these parameters of movement."…”

Section: Can J Neurol Sci 1993; 20 (Suppl 3): S93-s104mentioning

confidence: 99%

Preserved Simple and Impaired Compound Movement After Infarction in the Territory of the Superior Cerebellar Artery

Goodkin¹,

Keating²,

Martin³

et al. 1993

Can. J. Neurol. Sci.

106

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ABSTRACT:A patient with an infarct in the distribution of the right superior cerebellar artery was studied with regard to his ability to make simple movements (visually triggered, self-terminated ballistic wrist movements), and compound movements (reaching to a visual target and precision pinch of a seen object). Movements on the right side of the body alone were affected. Control movements were made by the normal left upper extremity. Wrist movement on the right side was normal in reaction time, direction, peak velocity, and end-point position control as compared to the left. By contrast, both reaching and pinching movements on the right were impaired. Reaching movements showed marked decomposition of the compound elbow-shoulder movement into seriatim simple movements made alternately at elbow and shoulder. Pinching movements were not made, and instead winkling movements (a movement of index alone) were substituted. These results are compared to similar results of controlled inactivation of the cerebellar dentate nucleus in monkeys. We conclude that one function of the cerebellum may be to combine elements in the movement repertoires of downstream movement generators. When that ability is lost, a strategy may be voluntarily adopted of using the preserved simple movements in place of the impaired compound movements. RESUME: Preservation des mouvements simples et alteration des mouvements complexes apres un infarctus dans le territoire de 1'artere cerebelleuse superieure. Nous avons etudie un patient ayant un infarctus dans le territoire irrigue par l"artere cerebelleuse superieure droite quant a sa capacite d'executer des mouvements simples (mouvements ballistiques du poignet a declenchement visuel, auto-limites) et des mouvements complexes (atteindre une cible visuelle et pincer avec precision un objet situe dans le champ de vision). Seulement les mouvements du cote droit du corps etaient affectes. Des mouvements controles etaient effectues par le membre superieur gauche normal. Le mouvement du poignet droit etait normal compare au gauche quant au temps de reaction, a la direction, a la velocite maximale et au controle de la position au point d'arrivee. Par ailleurs, les mouvements executes pour atteindre ou pincer du cote droit etaient atteints. Les mouvements pour atteindre une cible manifestaient une decomposition marquee de la composante epaule-coude en des mouvements simples, successifs, faits alternativement au coude et a l'epaule. Les mouvements de pincement n'etaient pas effectues et des mouvements oscillants y etaient substitues (mouvements de l'index seulement). Ces resultats sont compares a des resultats similaires d'inactivation controlee du noyau dentele chez le singe. Nous concluons qu'il est possible qu'une des fonctions du cervelet soit de combiner des elements du mouvement appartenant aux repertoires des generateurs de mouvements situes en aval. Quand cette capacite est perdue, une strategie utilisant des mouvements simples qui sont preserves peut etre substitute volontairement a l'utilisation ...

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“…Humans with cerebellar pathology demonstrate poor performance in measures of speed or velocity perception (Ivry and Diener, 1991;Grill et al, 1994), hand-target mismatch in oculomanual tracking (van Donkelaar and Lee, 1994), and inconsistent specification of movement direction (Becker et al, 1991). Lesion and inactivation experiments in animals support these observations, finding decreased coordination of ocular and manual motor systems (Vercher and Gauthier, 1988) and increased error during hand tracking (Miall et al, 1987).…”

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confidence: 94%

Cerebellar Purkinje Cell Simple Spike Discharge Encodes Movement Velocity in Primates during Visuomotor Arm Tracking

Coltz¹,

Johnson

Ebner³

1999

J. Neurosci.

122

115

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Pathophysiological, lesion, and electrophysiological studies suggest that the cerebellar cortex is important for controlling the direction and speed of movement. The relationship of cerebellar Purkinje cell discharge to the control of arm movement parameters, however, remains unclear. The goal of this study was to examine how movement direction and speed and their interaction-velocity-modulate Purkinje cell simple spike discharge in an arm movement task in which direction and speed were independently controlled. The simple spike discharge of 154 Purkinje cells was recorded in two monkeys during the performance of two visuomotor tasks that required the animals to track targets that moved in one of eight directions and at one of four speeds. Single-parameter regression analyses revealed that a large proportion of cells had discharge modulation related to movement direction and speed. Most cells with significant directional tuning, however, were modulated at one speed, and most cells with speed-related discharge were modulated along one direction; this suggested that the patterns of simple spike discharge were not adequately described by single-parameter models. Therefore, a regression surface was fitted to the data, which showed that the discharge could be tuned to specific direction-speed combinations (preferred velocities). The overall variability in simple spike discharge was well described by the surface model, and the velocities corresponding to maximal and minimal discharge rates were distributed uniformly throughout the workspace. Simple spike discharge therefore appears to integrate information about both the direction and speed of arm movements, thereby encoding movement velocity.

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Multi-Joint Reaching Movements and Eye-Hand Tracking in Cerebellar Incoordination: Investigation of a Patient with Complete Loss of Purkinje Cells

Cited by 64 publications

References 22 publications

Increased Variability in Finger Position Occurs Throughout Overarm Throws Made by Cerebellar and Unskilled Subjects

Increased Variability in Finger Position Occurs Throughout Overarm Throws Made by Cerebellar and Unskilled Subjects

Preserved Simple and Impaired Compound Movement After Infarction in the Territory of the Superior Cerebellar Artery

Cerebellar Purkinje Cell Simple Spike Discharge Encodes Movement Velocity in Primates during Visuomotor Arm Tracking

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