Abstract
Cerebellar functions in two types of perceptual timing were assessed: the absolute (duration-based) timing of single intervals and the relative (beat-based) timing of rhythmic sequences. Continuous transcranial magnetic theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) was applied over the medial cerebellum and performance was measured adaptively before and after stimulation. A large and significant effect was found in the TBS (n = 12) compared to the SHAM (n = 12) group for single-interval timing but not for the detection of a regular beat or a deviation from it. The data support the existence of distinct perceptual timing mechanisms and an obligatory role of the cerebellum in absolute interval timing with a functional dissociation from relative timing of interval within rhythmic sequences based on a regular beat.
Highlights
IntroductionThe current understanding of cerebellar functions includes motor learning (Glickstein, 1992; Thach et al, 1992) motor timing (Ivry et al, 1988; Ivry and Keele, 1989; Hore et al, 1991), sensory timing in motor control (Gao et al, 1996; Ivry et al, 2002; Koekkoek et al, 2003) and sensory timing in purely perceptual tasks (Gao et al, 1996), the focus of the present work
The effect of cerebellar TBS in comparison to SHAM stimulation was measured for the timing of single intervals, the detection of a regular beat, and the detection of a deviation from an isochronous beat (Figure 1)
A significant effect of TBS compared with SHAM stimulation was found for the absolute, duration-based but not for the relative, beat-based timing tasks
Summary
The current understanding of cerebellar functions includes motor learning (Glickstein, 1992; Thach et al, 1992) motor timing (Ivry et al, 1988; Ivry and Keele, 1989; Hore et al, 1991), sensory timing in motor control (Gao et al, 1996; Ivry et al, 2002; Koekkoek et al, 2003) and sensory timing in purely perceptual tasks (Gao et al, 1996), the focus of the present work. Recent studies in neuropsychology (Ivry and Keele, 1989; Nichelli et al, 1996; Malapani et al, 1998; Mangels et al, 1998; Harrington et al, 2004), functional imaging (Jueptner et al, 1995; Penhune et al, 1998; Mathiak et al, 2004; Xu et al, 2006; Grahn and Brett, 2007; Chen et al, 2008) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (Koch et al, 2007; Lee et al, 2007) implicate the cerebellum in perceptual and motor timing using tasks of absolute or relative timing (for recent review see Koch et al, 2009). The neural substrates of this dissociation remain to be identified
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