Time Distortion in Parkinsonism

Abstract

Although animal studies and studies on Parkinson’s disease (PD) suggest that dopamine deficiency slows the pace of the internal clock, which is corrected by dopaminergic medication, timing deficits in parkinsonism remain to be characterized with diverse findings. Here we studied patients with PD and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), 3–4 h after drug intake, and normal age-matched subjects. We contrasted perceptual (temporal bisection, duration comparison) and motor timing tasks (time production/reproduction) in supra- and sub-second time domains, and automatic versus cognitive/short-term memory–related tasks. Subjects were allowed to count during supra-second production and reproduction tasks. In the time production task, linearly correlating the produced time with the instructed time showed that the “subjective sense” of 1 s is slightly longer in PD and shorter in PSP than in normals. This was superposed on a prominent trend of underestimation of longer (supra-second) durations, common to all groups, suggesting that the pace of the internal clock changed from fast to slow as time went by. In the time reproduction task, PD and, more prominently, PSP patients over-reproduced shorter durations and under-reproduced longer durations at extremes of the time range studied, with intermediate durations reproduced veridically, with a shallower slope of linear correlation between the presented and produced time. In the duration comparison task, PD patients overestimated the second presented duration relative to the first with shorter but not longer standard durations. In the bisection task, PD and PSP patients estimated the bisection point (BP50) between the two supra-second but not sub-second standards to be longer than normal subjects. Thus, perceptual timing tasks showed changes in opposite directions to motor timing tasks: underestimating shorter durations and overestimating longer durations. In PD, correlation of the mini-mental state examination score with supra-second BP50 and the slope of linear correlation in the reproduction task suggested involvement of short-term memory in these tasks. Dopamine deficiency didn’t correlate significantly with timing performances, suggesting that the slowed clock hypothesis cannot explain the entire results. Timing performance in PD may be determined by complex interactions among time scales on the motor and sensory sides, and by their distortion in memory.

Mental arithmetic modulates temporal variabilities of finger-tapping tasks in a tempo-dependent manner

“…The current results potentially contribute to the understanding of arithmetic, language processing, and temporal processing. Clinically, the deficiencies of these functions were frequently observed in patients with various psychiatric conditions such as dementia, depression, Parkinson’s disease, and autism ( Folstein, Folstein & McHugh, 1975 ; Kjelgaard & Tager-Flusberg, 2001 ; Casassus et al, 2019 ; Buciuc et al, 2021 ; Terao et al, 2021 ; Yeung et al, 2021 ). Furthermore, the cognitive impairments in these disorders are known to appear in complex combinations rather than in a fixed pattern ( American Psychiatric Association, 2013 ).…”

“…Temporal processing is one of the cognitive domains related to temporal dimensions. It is often impaired by several psychiatric diseases, such as a bipolar disorder, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, and autism ( Folstein, Folstein & McHugh, 1975 ; Kuhs et al, 1991 ; Kjelgaard & Tager-Flusberg, 2001 ; Mahlberg et al, 2008 ; Casassus et al, 2019 ; Buciuc et al, 2021 ; Terao et al, 2021 ; Yeung et al, 2021 ). Temporal processing is sometimes divided into two sub-categories: sub-second intervals and supra-second intervals (c.f.…”

Review: Subjective Time Perception, Dopamine Signaling, and Parkinsonian Slowness

“…A so-called Weber ratio (WR) quantified variability in responses, PD subjects tended to underestimate time and to exhibit widely distributed individual WR's, the latter suggesting lower sensitivity to time estimation generally. Reminiscent of Malapani et al ( 17 ), Terao et al ( 72 ) found that time reproduction of very short time durations was longer in PD subjects [and even longer in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) subjects] and shorter for long-time durations (even shorter in PSP). Terao et al's methodology included various tests in concert with time reproduction tasks.…”

Parkinson’s disease deficits in time perception to auditory as well as visual stimuli – A large online study

“…Aberrant time perception in PD could provide some insight into disease progression and severity. Perceptual error in auditory duration comparison correlated with mini-mental state examination (MMSE) score in a recent study (Terao et al, 2021), and should be studied longitudinally in a prospective cohort study. Additionally, these deficits may exhibit consistent treatment effects: two studies have shown improvements of deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN DBS) on time perception in auditory interval discrimination at subsecond time scales, and motor time production at suprasecond timescales (Koch et al, 2004;Guehl et al, 2008).…”