Impaired cognitive modification for estimating time duration in Parkinson's disease

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with various cognitive impairments. However, the nature of cognitive modification in patients with PD remains to be elucidated. In the present study, we examined whether patients with PD could correct and maintain subjective time duration and line length estimation. After training sessions, in which participants repeatedly memorized either a duration or a length, we compared a learning performance in 20 PD patients with 20 healthy controls. In the case of duration in the PD patients, the learned durations immediately returned to baseline of pre-training within a few minutes. However, the patients' ability to learn length estimation remained unimpaired. In contrast, healthy controls were able to retain the learned duration and length estimations. Time compression in PD's internal clock may become entrained to their altered duration estimation even after learning of accurate time duration. These deficits may be associated with disrupting cognitive modification in PD.

Fig 1. Delayed reproduction task.

(A) Line length was estimated by drawing a line with a pen to reproduce line length (11 or 22 cm) after 5 minutes. The sample line was presented for 11 s. (B) Time duration was estimated by tapping a tablet with a pen to reproduce a sample presentation (11 or 22 s) after 5 minutes. (C) The estimated lengths did not differ between healthy controls (HC) and patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) in the tasks involving both the 11 cm and 22 cm lines. (D) The estimated durations did not differ between the HC and PD groups in the tasks involving both 11 s and 22 s durations.

Fig 2. Estimation training task.

(A) Line length was estimated by drawing a line with a pen without a cue in the test, retest, and added-retest sessions (left), and with a ruler cue in the training session (right). (B) Time duration was estimated by tapping the tablet with a pen without a cue in the test, retest, and added-retest sessions (left), and with a clock cue in the training session (right). (C) The estimated lengths did not differ between healthy controls (HC) and patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) in any session. However, there were differences in performance between the second test and first training session in both HCs and patients with PD. (D) Estimated durations differed between the HC and PD groups in the test, retest, and added-retest sessions. Performance differed between the average of the test session and the first trial of the training session in both the HC and PD groups. Furthermore, the last trial of the training session differed from all trials in the retest session in the PD group.