Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder pathologically characterized by a selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. In previous studies, greater attention was paid to impairments in motor disturbances in contrast to impairments of cognitive function in PD that was often ignored. In present study, a duration discrimination paradigm was used to assess global and local biological motion (BM) perception in healthy controls(HCs) and PD patients with and without dopamine substitution treatment (DST). Biological motion sequences and inanimate motion sequences (inverted BM sequences) were sequentially presented on a screen. Observers were required to verbally make a 2-alternative forced-choice to indicate whether the first or second interval appeared longer. The stimuli involved global and local BM sequences. Statistical analyses were conducted on points of subjective equality (PSE). We found significant differences between untreated PD patients and HCs as well as differences between global and local BM conditions. PD patients have a deficit in both global and local BM perception. Nevertheless, these two BM conditions can be improved under DST. Our data indicates that BM perception may be damaged in PD patients and dopaminergic medication is conducive to maintain the BM perception in PD patients.
Highlights
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder pathologically characterized by a selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra
The results of this study showed that there is a negative points of subjective equality (PSE) for both the global biological motion (BM) signals and local ones in PD patients with regular dopamine substitution treatment (DST) and healthy controls
Our results showed that a negative PSE indicated temporal dilation in healthy controls and PD patients with DST, an effect confirmed by Wang and Jiang[17]
Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder pathologically characterized by a selective loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Biological motion (BM) perception is a multi-level phenomenon that requires bottom-up integration of signals from basic visual motion perception along with top-down social cognition[1] It consists of both global and local processes. Jiang and colleagues showed that BM signals could prolong their perceived temporal duration, independent of global configuration and without the observer’s subjective awareness of their biological nature[17] They adopted a duration discrimination paradigm and found that an upright BM sequence was perceived for a significantly longer period of time compared to the inverted, inanimate sequence of the same physical duration. This temporal dilation could be extended to spatially scrambled biological sequences that only involve information from local biological motion. It is generally argued that disorders of facial emotion recognition in PD result from a loss of dopaminergic neurons leading to dysfunctional frontosubcortical systems[30,31,32]
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