Subthalamic deep brain stimulation in Parkinson׳s disease has no significant effect on perceptual timing in the hundreds of milliseconds range.

ABSTRACT: Bilateral, high-frequency stimulation of the basal ganglia (STN-DBS) is in widespread use for the treatment of the motor symptoms of Parkinson׳s disease (PD). We present here the first psychophysical investigation of the effect of STN-DBS upon perceptual timing in the hundreds of milliseconds range, with both duration-based (absolute) and beat-based (relative) tasks; 13 patients with PD were assessed with their STN-DBS 'on', 'off', and then 'on' again. Paired parametric analyses revealed no statistically significant differences for any task according to DBS status. We demonstrate, from the examination of confidence intervals, that any functionally relevant effect of STN-DBS on relative perceptual timing is statistically unlikely. For absolute, duration-based timing, we demonstrate that the

SUBMITTER: Cope TE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4022837 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature