Graziola Federica, Pellorca Chiara, Di Criscio Lorena, Vigevano Federico, Curatolo Paolo, Capuano Alessandro
Movement Disorders Clinic, Department of Neurosciences, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Rome, Italy.
Department of Neuroscience, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy.
Front Neurol. 2020 Oct 29;11:552701. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2020.552701. eCollection 2020.
Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by motor and vocal tics. Co-occurrence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is very frequent in the pediatric population as well as the presence of an impairment of the executive functions. The aim of our study was to investigate motor timing, that is, the temporal organization of motor behavior, in a pediatric population of Tourette patients. Thirty-seven Tourette patients (divided in 22 "pure" Tourette patients and 15 with ADHD) were compared with 22 healthy age- and gender-matched subjects. All subjects underwent a neuropsychiatric screening and were tested for their planning and decision-making abilities by using a standardized test, such as Tower of London (ToL). Two experimental paradigms were adopted: finger-tapping test (FTT), a free motor tapping task, and synchronization-continuation task. An accuracy index was calculated as measure of ability of synchronization. We found that "pure" TS as well as TS+ADHD showed lower scores in the FTT for the dominant and non-dominant hands than controls. Moreover, in the synchronization and continuation test, we observed an overall lack of accuracy in both TS groups in the continuation phase for 2,000 ms (supra-second interval), interestingly, with opposite direction of accuracy index. Thus, "pure" TS patients were classified as "behind the beat," whereas, TS+ADHD as "ahead of the beat." The performance in the finger tapping was inversely correlated to ToL total scores and execution time, whereas we did not find any correlation with the accuracy index of the synchronization and continuation test. In conclusion, here, we explored motor timing ability in a childhood cohort of Tourette patients, confirming that patients exhibit an impaired temporal control of motor behavior and these findings may be explained by the common underlying neurobiology of TS and motor timing.
抽动秽语综合征（TS）是一种以运动和发声抽动为特征的神经发育障碍。注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）或强迫症（OCD）在儿科人群中经常与TS共现，同时还存在执行功能受损的情况。我们研究的目的是调查抽动秽语症患儿群体中的运动定时，即运动行为的时间组织。将37名抽动秽语症患者（分为22名“单纯”抽动秽语症患者和15名患有ADHD的患者）与22名年龄和性别匹配的健康受试者进行比较。所有受试者都接受了神经精神筛查，并通过使用标准化测试（如伦敦塔测试（ToL））来测试他们的计划和决策能力。采用了两种实验范式：手指敲击测试（FTT），一种自由运动敲击任务，以及同步 - 延续任务。计算了一个准确性指数作为同步能力的度量。我们发现，“单纯”TS患者以及TS + ADHD患者在FTT中，优势手和非优势手的得分均低于对照组。此外，在同步和延续测试中，我们观察到两个TS组在延续阶段2000毫秒（超秒间隔）内总体缺乏准确性，有趣的是，准确性指数方向相反。因此，“单纯”TS患者被归类为“节奏滞后”，而TS + ADHD患者则为“节奏超前”。手指敲击的表现与ToL总分和执行时间呈负相关，而我们未发现与同步和延续测试的准确性指数有任何相关性。总之，我们在此探索了抽动秽语症患儿群体中的运动定时能力，证实患者表现出运动行为的时间控制受损，这些发现可能由TS和运动定时共同的潜在神经生物学机制来解释。
