Friday, November 17, 2006

Cerebellum differential time-keeping role


This is a follow-up post up on my prior posts regarding the three major systems of timing, the brain functions/structures involved in mental/interval time-keeping, and research implicating the brains master time clock in certain clinical disorders (click here)

According to Buhusi and Meck (2006), research has suggested that impaired mental/interval time-keeping in the seconds-to-minutes range is found in patients with disorders that involve dopaminergic pathways (Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease,and schizophrenia. Coupled with research that has studied the impact of lesions in the cerebellum, these authors conclude that "the striatum and cerebellum are involved in different aspects of timing and time perception. Although the cerebellum is not essential for interval timing, it is required for correct millisecond timing"

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2 comments:

A Jacksonian said...

Just wandering through the random blogs and interesting to come upon yours. As someone suffering a familial form of narcoleptic-like symptoms, in this case catalepsy, I can clearly identify that my peception of reality and time are interwoven. Loss of recuperative sleep is a great hinderance and tends to change perception of the world around me, although I know it is only a perceptual change and not a *real* change.

While I had, in the past, experienced the disassociation between time interval discrimination, the other bodily functions that I needed to tend to as a diabetic, served as a backstop to ensuring more regular time discrimination. Low blood glucose levels do have an effect on the time discrimination capability and was always a warning sign when time would slip by unnoticed that my BG had dropped too low.

Now, after suffering some loss of actual cerebral content in a non-age related manner, the familial tendancy to catalepsy hit me and hard, along with attendant loss of integrated knowledge use and time sense keeping in the interval area. Non-linear thinking was my trademark and has served very well in adapting and coping with this, even if some of those adaptations are unusual. I am glad such research goes on although have doubts that it will be of benefit on a personal level until the actual technology gets to the point of restoring brain function.

My thanks for your posting as it was an interesting thing to run across.

Kevin McGrew said...

Thanks for your interesting comments and personal story. I'm glad you found something of value in this new blog. Thanks again.