Affiliations: Institut für Medizinische Psychologie,
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany | Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Department of Neurophysiology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 3 Pasteur Street, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland
Note: [] Correspondence to: N. von Steinbüchel, Institut für
Medizinische Psychologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Goethestr. 31,
80336 München, Germany; Tel.: +49-89-5996-635 or 5996-650; Fax:
+49-89-5996-615; E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: Neuropsychological research on temporal constraints of perception
and motor performance can add important information to research on human
behavior. Without considering temporal mechanisms of perceiving, generating,
and updating information, brain mechanisms can never be fully understood. In
this study temporal aspects of performance in psychophysical experiments on
three different temporal levels (around 30 ms, 300 ms, and 3000 ms) were
investigated in patients with acquired brain lesions and a control group
without neurological deficits. The patients had acquired focal brain lesions
in: anterior (pre-central) regions of the left hemisphere (with non-fluent
aphasia), posterior (post-central) regions of the left hemisphere (with fluent
aphasia), the left hemipshere in predominantly subcortical regions (without
aphasia), or anterior (pre-central) or posterior (post-central) regions of the
right hemipshere. Perception of temporal order (20 to 60 ms) was impaired in
patients with left-hemispheric post-central lesions; repetitive voluntary
action (300 to 500 ms) was affected mostly in patients with left hemi-spheric
lesions, both pre-central and post-central; and a deficit in integrating (2000
ms to 3000 ms) information was most pronounced in patients with left and right
pre-central lesions. These findings provide insight into the associations
between different levels of temporal organisation and circumscribed regions of
the neocortex.
