Developmental and Tourette-related mechanisms of event file coding

Neurophysiological correlates of the development of event file coding:
A comparison of maturational and Tourette-related mechanisms
(funded by DFG)

Background

© TUD LDNS

This project is a subproject in a DFG funded Research Unit, TEC4Tic (https://www.tec4tic.uni-luebeck.de/startseite.html). In collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, TU Dresden and the University of Lübeck, we use the framework of the Theory of Event Coding (TEC) to investigate how neural mechanisms of perception and action integration change during development and are altered in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS). GTS is a neurodevelopmental disorder with prototypical symptom onset in childhood and age-dependent remission during adolescence in most cases.

Aims and Methods

This project systematically compares behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of perception–action event coding, i.e., perceptual categorization, feature binding and response selection, between patients and healthy controls across the age periods representing key phases of the clinical course of Tourette syndrome. We use the electroencephalography (EEG) to gain insights into the neural basis of tics and urges and to investigate the neurodevelopmental processes in cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits that subserve 'developmental normalization' in GTS.

The anticipated results of this project will shed light on mechanisms contributing to individual differences in symptom remission. This will serve as a starting point of a follow-up study investigating longitudinal trajectories of neurophysiological changes that are associated with typical and atypical development of action planning.

Principal Investigator and Team

• Prof. Shu-Chen Li, Ph.D
• M. Sc. Roxane Dilcher

Collaborators

• Prof. Dr. med. Alexander Münchau
• Prof. Dr. Christian Beste

Selected Project-relevant Publications

Dilcher, R., Jamous, R., Takacs, A., Tóth-Fáber, E., Münchau, A., Li, S.-C., & Beste, C. (2020). Neurophysiology of embedded response plans: Age effects in action execution but not in feature integration from pre-adolescence to adulthood. [submitted manuscript]

Dilcher, R., Beste, C., Takacs, A., Bluschke, A., Tóth-Fáber, E., Kleimaker, M., … Li, S.-C. (2020). Neurophysiological dynamics underlying age-related modulations of stimulus-response binding processes: A cross-sectional EEG study. [submitted manuscript]

Li, S.-C., Dilcher, R., & Muenchau, A. (2019). Developmental trajectories of sensorimotor and cognitive control in Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome. Zeitschrift für Neuropsychologie, 30, 231-237. doi:10.1024/1016-264X/a000271