Huntington's Disease and Scalar Expectancy Theory: A Memory-Based Time Perception Deficit

Huntington’s disease (HD) damages the basal ganglia dopaminergic circuits which are fundamental neural correlates of the timekeeping mechanism. In this work we investigated whether HD may impair temporal processing and if any component of the Scalar Expectancy Theory (SET) might be responsible of the timing defect. To achieve this result we explored time perception in early symptomatic HD patients and controls for seconds and milliseconds. Data showed an impaired time processing in HD patients that overestimated shorter time intervals and underestimated the longer ones for both seconds and milliseconds. This defect, called migration effect, may suggest a specific deficit in the memory component of SET.