Learning and Human Movement Control Group, INEF Galicia, University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain.
Neurosci Lett. 2013 Aug 26;548:56-60. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2013.05.069. Epub 2013 Jun 12.
Startle stimuli lead to shorter reaction times in control subjects and Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. However, non-startle stimuli also enhance movement initiation in PD. We wanted to examine whether a startle-triggered movement would retain similar kinematic and EMG-related characteristics compared to one induced by a non-startle external cue in PD patients. In this study we investigated the electromyography pattern and the reaction time during a wrist flexion movement in response to three different stimuli: a visual imperative stimulus; visual stimulus simultaneous with a non-startle auditory stimulus and with a startle auditory stimulus. Ten PD patients and ten aged matched controls participated in this study. The reaction times were faster for startle and non-startle stimuli in comparison with the visual imperative stimulus, in both patients and control subjects. The startle cue induced a faster reaction than the non-startle cue. The electromyography pattern remained unchanged across the conditions. The results suggest that the startle reaction effect for upper limb movements are unimpaired in PD patients and has different characteristics than the effect of non-startle stimuli.
惊吓刺激会导致对照组和帕金森病（PD）患者的反应时间缩短。然而，非惊吓刺激也会促进 PD 患者的运动起始。我们想研究在 PD 患者中，与非惊吓外部线索引起的运动相比，惊吓触发的运动是否会保留相似的运动学和肌电图相关特征。在这项研究中，我们调查了在三种不同刺激下（视觉强制性刺激、视觉刺激与非惊吓听觉刺激同时出现以及惊吓听觉刺激），手腕弯曲运动的肌电图模式和反应时间。十名 PD 患者和十名年龄匹配的对照者参加了这项研究。与视觉强制性刺激相比，患者和对照组对惊吓和非惊吓刺激的反应时间都更快。惊吓线索引起的反应比非惊吓线索更快。肌电图模式在所有条件下都保持不变。结果表明，PD 患者的上肢惊吓反应不受影响，其特征与非惊吓刺激的特征不同。
