Brain Advance Access originally published online on April 6, 2004
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Brain, Vol. 127, No. 6, 1292-1301, 2004
© 2004 Guarantors of Brain
doi: 10.1093/brain/awh154
Neurobiology of perceptual and motor timing in children with spina bifida in relation to cerebellar volume
1 Brain and Behaviour Program, Departments of 2 Radiology and 3 Surgery, 4 Community Health and Knowledge Transfer, Hospital for Sick Children, Departments of 5 Surgery and 6 Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 7 Center for Computational Biomedicine, Departments of 8 Pediatrics and 9 Radiology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and 10 Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
Correspondence to: Maureen Dennis, PhD, Brain and Behaviour Program/Psychology, Hospital for Sick Children, 555 University Avenue, Toronto, ON M5G 1X8, Canada. E-mail: maureen.dennis{at}sickkids.ca
The cerebellum is important for perceptual and motor timing in the mature brain, but the timing function of the cerebellum in the immature brain is less well understood. We investigated timing in children with spina bifida meningomyelocele (SB), a neural tube defect that involves cerebellar dysgenesis, and in age-matched controls. Specifically, we studied perceptual timing (judgements of 400 ms duration) and motor timing (isochronous motor tapping); measured cerebellar volumes; and related perceptual and motor timing to each other and to cerebellar volume measurements. Children with SB had impairments in the perception of duration (around 400 ms) but not frequency (around 3000 Hz), showing that their perceptual timing deficit was not a generalized auditory impairment. Children with SB had motor timing deficits on unpaced but not paced isochronous tapping, and their unpaced timing performance was associated with clock variance rather than with motor implementation. Perceptual and motor timing were correlated, suggesting that children with SB have impairments in a central timing mechanism. Children with SB, especially those with upper spinal cord lesions, had significant cerebellar volume reductions in grey and white matter, as well as different regional patterns of grey matter, white matter and CSF. Duration perception was correlated with cerebellar volumes, and the number of valid tapping trials was correlated with cerebellar volumes in the SB group, which data demonstrate structure–function relations between timing and cerebellar volumes.
Key Words: spina bifida; hydrocephalus; cerebellum; timing; MRI volumetrics
Abbreviations: ADHD = attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; SB = spina bifida meningomyelocele
Received September 18, 2003. Revised January 15, 2004. Accepted January 16, 2004.
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