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> Bad timing, not nerves, may explain the irregular motions of > Parkinson's Disease patients, research led at Columbia has found. Not to mention not scoring on dates, the difference between a strike and a home run, etc., etc. I wonder if it would explain the irregular motions of diarrhoea? >... It tells > humans a stop light is broken or that the end of a television > commercial is approaching. Or better yet, that the *start* of a TV commercial is approaching. > ...Gibbon and his colleagues hypothesize > that the jerky motions of Parkinson's may result from a patient's > inability to time smooth, fluid movement, like a turn of the head or a > wave of the arm, creating instead a series of separate, stop-and-go > motions. Know all about the stop and go motions. Where can I get the smooth, fluid motions? > ... Parkinson's patients were asked to watch a computer > image of a rectangle that changed color after 8 seconds or after 21 > seconds ... The patients were unable to > accurately remember the interval... Gee, I didn't know my "shakes" were 8 to 21 secs. apart. I really *do* underestimate time. >... once thought to be strictly neuromuscular... Not for the last 10 years or so, but carry on... > ... In the Paris experiments, patients were tested after > stopping their medication. Putting patients back on the drug restored > their sense of time. Not to mention their sanity! > The Columbia biopsychologist is beginning experiments with the Paris > research group to determine whether the impairment in Parkinson's > occurs during storage or retrieval of temporal memory. Who knows, they may even get around to actually *talking* to a PWP. > That work could well give scientists the insights that will give > Parkinson's patients back their sense of time and movement. PWP's, however, do not have any insights into their own disorder, due to not being able to tell the time. :-) > In related discoveries with animals, also reported at AAAS, Gibbon and > two colleagues described components of the interval timing mechanism, > located in the basal ganglia, that act as the body's stopwatch. I wonder if the animals could tell when the TV commercials would end? > Increasing or decreasing the level of dopamine in the brain speeds up > or slows down an individual's sense of the passage of time, Meck and > Church had found in the early 1980's. Not to mention their sense of the need to "publish or perish". > ... Severe damage > to the substantia nigra stops all timing, as it cuts off the dopamine > supply. And eventually the blood supply, the air supply, the... Sheesh! And you wonder why I would like researchers to involve PWP's (using not just a *part* of their brain, but *all* of it) in their research. BTW, do you realise that if you cut a chicken's head off, it doesn't know when a TV commercial will end? Just think of the implications for market research!. Jim