Time-Interval Estimation Training Modulate Motor Behavior and Cerebral Cortex Activity in Parkinson Disease Patients: Preliminary Study

Abstract

Background and objectives Several studies indicate that subjects with Parkinson’s disease present motor impaired, timing and many interventions used to improve their motor behavior, but so far no training protocols that use time-estimation tasks. In this preliminary study, we aimed to report the effects of the time-estimation task training on motor behaviour and the electroencephalographic activity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and motor cortex. Methods We analysed motor-exploration behaviour in 5 Parkinson’s patients using the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale, in addition to the alpha band absolute power activity of the electroencephalogram. Results Our results show the motor-exploration behaviour improvement in Parkinson patients after the training (p<0.05). Moreover, the alpha band oscillations in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the motor area bilaterally increased with training (p<0.05). Conclusion We propose that the increase in alpha band absolute power following the training may underlie an efficient accumulation of temporal pulses, which could be responsible for the improvement in the patient motor behaviour demonstrated in the current study.