Use of sequence information in associative learning in control subjects and cerebellar patients

Previous studies of our group have shown that cerebellar patients are impaired in their ability to associate a color and a numeral or two colors with a button push. The aim of the present study was to examine whether control subjects make use of sequence information in visuomotor associative learning tasks and if this ability is impaired in cerebellar patients. A group of eight patients with degenerative cerebellar disease and eight age, sex and IQ matched controls were tested. Subjects had to learn the association between pairs of colored squares and a button push. Two colored squares were shown one after the other in a fixed or random order on a computer screen. Control subjects but not cerebellar patients took advantage of the fixed order information of colored squares in order to improve associative learning. Differences between groups could not be explained by differences in verbal and visuospatial short-term memory, color discrimination, affective state or motor disturbances. Results suggest that impaired sequencing of sensory stimuli may contribute to disorders in visuomotor associative learning in cerebellar patients.