Shin Jacqueline C, Ivry Richard B
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2003 Nov 15;15(8):1232-43. doi: 10.1162/089892903322598175.
The functional role of different subcortical areas in sequence learning is not clear. In the current study, Parkinson's patients, patients with cerebellar damage, and age-matched control participants performed a serial reaction time task in which a spatial sequence and a temporal sequence were presented simultaneously. The responses were based on the spatial sequence, and the temporal sequence was incidental to the task. The two sequences were of the same length, and the phase relationship between them was held constant throughout training. Sequence learning was assessed comparing performance when both sequences were present versus when the dimension of interest was randomized. In addition, sequence integration was assessed by introducing phase-shift blocks. A functional dissociation was found between the two patient groups. Whereas the Parkinson's patients learned the spatial and temporal sequences individually, they did not learn the relationship between the two sequences, suggesting the basal ganglia play a functional role in sequence integration. In contrast, the cerebellar patients did not show any evidence of sequence learning at all, suggesting the cerebellum might play a general role in forming sequential associations.
不同皮层下区域在序列学习中的功能作用尚不清楚。在当前研究中，帕金森病患者、小脑损伤患者以及年龄匹配的对照参与者进行了一项序列反应时任务，其中同时呈现一个空间序列和一个时间序列。反应基于空间序列，而时间序列是该任务附带的。两个序列长度相同，并且在整个训练过程中它们之间的相位关系保持不变。通过比较两个序列都存在时与感兴趣维度被随机化时的表现来评估序列学习。此外，通过引入相位偏移块来评估序列整合。在两个患者组之间发现了功能分离。帕金森病患者分别学习了空间和时间序列，但他们没有学习到两个序列之间的关系，这表明基底神经节在序列整合中发挥功能作用。相比之下，小脑损伤患者根本没有显示出任何序列学习的证据，这表明小脑可能在形成序列关联中起一般作用。
