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Evidence for enhanced multi-component behaviour in Tourette syndrome - an EEG study
Valerie C Brandt1,2, Ann-Kathrin Stock3, Alexander Münchau4
1Department of Psychology, Centre for Innovation in Mental Health, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK. V.C.Brandt@soton.ac.uk.
Scientific Reports
|August 12, 2017
Summary
Individuals with Tourette syndrome (TS) demonstrate superior performance in complex tasks requiring behavior integration. This enhanced ability in Tourette syndrome may stem from fronto-striatal network hyperconnectivity.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Tourette syndrome (TS) is associated with dopamine dysregulation and altered fronto-striatal circuits.
- These neural changes may influence the integration of multi-component behaviors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate multi-component behavior integration in individuals with Tourette syndrome.
- To compare behavioral and neurophysiological responses between TS patients and healthy controls using the stop-change task.
Main Methods:
- The stop-change task was administered to 15 TS patients and 15 healthy controls.
- Participants responded to Go stimuli, with occasional stop cues to withhold responses and change cues to switch response hands.
- Varying onset asynchronies (0 and 300 ms) between stop and change cues manipulated task difficulty.
Main Results:
- Tourette syndrome patients showed higher accuracy than controls in the 0 ms delay condition (no difficulty).
- No significant difference in accuracy was observed between groups at the 300 ms delay condition (increased difficulty).
- This performance advantage in TS was associated with a smaller P3 event-related potential.
Conclusions:
- Tourette syndrome is linked to enhanced multi-component behavior integration, possibly due to fronto-striatal hyperconnectivity.
- This enhanced integration may reflect an improved capacity to process multiple information streams for response sequencing.
- Chronic tic suppression could be a contributing factor to these observed behavioral and neural differences.
