Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Heinrich-Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
PLoS One. 2011;6(9):e24589. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0024589. Epub 2011 Sep 12.
Timing in the range of seconds referred to as interval timing is crucial for cognitive operations and conscious time processing. According to recent models of interval timing basal ganglia (BG) oscillatory loops are involved in time interval recognition. Parkinsońs disease (PD) is a typical disease of the basal ganglia that shows distortions in interval timing. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is a powerful treatment of PD which modulates motor and cognitive functions depending on stimulation frequency by affecting subcortical-cortical oscillatory loops. Thus, for the understanding of BG-involvement in interval timing it is of interest whether STN-DBS can modulate timing in a frequency dependent manner by interference with oscillatory time recognition processes. We examined production and reproduction of 5 and 15 second intervals and millisecond timing in a double blind, randomised, within-subject repeated-measures design of 12 PD-patients applying no, 10-Hz- and ≥ 130-Hz-STN-DBS compared to healthy controls. We found under(re-)production of the 15-second interval and a significant enhancement of this under(re-)production by 10-Hz-stimulation compared to no stimulation, ≥ 130-Hz-STN-DBS and controls. Milliseconds timing was not affected. We provide first evidence for a frequency-specific modulatory effect of STN-DBS on interval timing. Our results corroborate the involvement of BG in general and of the STN in particular in the cognitive representation of time intervals in the range of multiple seconds.
被称为间隔计时的秒级时间对于认知操作和意识时间处理至关重要。根据间隔计时的基底神经节（BG）振荡环路的最新模型，基底神经节参与时间间隔识别。帕金森病（PD）是一种典型的基底神经节疾病，其在间隔计时方面存在扭曲。丘脑底核（STN）的深部脑刺激（DBS）是 PD 的一种强大治疗方法，通过影响皮质下-皮质振荡环路，通过影响亚皮质-皮质振荡环路，根据刺激频率调节运动和认知功能。因此，为了了解 BG 在间隔计时中的作用，STN-DBS 是否可以通过干扰振荡时间识别过程以频率依赖的方式调节计时，这是很有意义的。我们在 12 名 PD 患者的双盲、随机、自身对照、重复测量设计中，检查了 5 秒和 15 秒间隔以及毫秒计时的产生和再现，这些患者接受了无、10-Hz 和≥130-Hz-STN-DBS 治疗，与健康对照组进行了比较。我们发现 15 秒间隔的（再）产生减少，与无刺激相比，10-Hz 刺激显著增强了这种（再）产生，而≥130-Hz-STN-DBS 和对照组则没有。毫秒计时不受影响。我们首次提供了 STN-DBS 对间隔计时具有频率特异性调节作用的证据。我们的结果证实了 BG 一般，特别是 STN 特别参与了多个秒级时间间隔的认知表示。
