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Abstract:
The ability to process temporal relations in sensory input is a prerequisite for adequate coordination of behavioral responses and environmental events. Here, sensorimotor synchronization was investigated in an adaptive timing task (Repp & Keller 2004). Patients with basal ganglia (BG) lesions and healthy controls were asked to align finger tapping to tone sequences that either did or did not contain a tempo change. At the end of each sequence participants continued tapping at the final tempo. The initial inter-onset interval (IOI) was 600 ms, followed by tempo accelerations or decelerations of 30, 45, 60 or 75 ms, respectively. Also, each participant´s spontaneous motor tempo (SMT) was assessed before and after the task (McAuley et al. 2006). Results indicate that SMT before the task was more variable in patients than in controls. Both groups showed less variability after the adaptive timing task. During sensorimotor synchronization overall adaption to tempo changes was greater at faster tempi than at slower tempi. Error correction mechanisms, that is, phase- and period correction, were affected differently with phase correction being more effective in tempo decelerations whereas period correction was more effective in tempo accelerations. Especially for slower tempi patients responded more variable and less sensitive to tempo change. The data show that the BG are involved in the detection of tempo change, in particular at slower rates.
