Dopaminergic tone predicts rhythmic temporal attention in Parkinson's disease
- 1UCLA
Abstract
Beat perception, the ability to perceive and anticipate a regular pulse in music, is thought to depend on the basal ganglia. Dopaminergic signaling is a candidate mechanism given its prominence in basal ganglia circuitry and established function in encoding temporal predictions. Parkinson's disease (PD) provides a model for studying dopaminergic contributions to beat perception. To test the hypothesis that higher dopaminergic tone is associated with better beat perception, we conducted a study in PD patients (n=55) and matched controls (n=53). Participants performed a musical beat perception task, the Beat Drop Alignment Test (BDAT). They also completed a non-timing control task measuring musical pitch perception, the Mistuning Perception Test (MPT). We identified a double dissociation in PD patients: daily dopamine dose was associated with beat perception (r=.37, p=.005) but not pitch perception (r=.12, p=.397), while musical background was associated with pitch perception (r=.55, p<.001) but not beat perception (r=.16, p=.236). Results remained consistent when controlling for disease duration and age. This dissociation suggests the effect of dopamine is specific to beat perception and not reflective of a general improvement in auditory processing. High-dopamine patients outperformed both low-dopamine patients and age-matched controls, and this difference was driven by better detection of on-beat than off-beat events. Together, these results suggest that dopamine is associated with enhanced beat perception, potentially through modulation of temporal attention to expected beat times.
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BibTeX
@misc{yosef2026dopaminergic,
title = {{Dopaminergic tone predicts rhythmic temporal attention in Parkinson's disease}},
author = {B. Yosef and B. Balamurugan and M. Miura and K. Cross},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.08.749528},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.08.749528v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Dopaminergic tone predicts rhythmic temporal attention in Parkinson's disease
AU - B. Yosef
AU - B. Balamurugan
AU - M. Miura
AU - K. Cross
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.08.749528
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.08.749528v1
AB - Beat perception, the ability to perceive and anticipate a regular pulse in music, is thought to depend on the basal ganglia. Dopaminergic signaling is a candidate mechanism given its prominence in basal ganglia circuitry and established function in encoding temporal predictions. Parkinson's disease (PD) provides a model for studying dopaminergic contributions to beat perception. To test the hypothesis that higher dopaminergic tone is associated with better beat perception, we conducted a study in PD patients (n=55) and matched controls (n=53). Participants performed a musical beat perception task, the Beat Drop Alignment Test (BDAT). They also completed a non-timing control task measuring musical pitch perception, the Mistuning Perception Test (MPT). We identified a double dissociation in PD patients: daily dopamine dose was associated with beat perception (r=.37, p=.005) but not pitch perception (r=.12, p=.397), while musical background was associated with pitch perception (r=.55, p<.001) but not beat perception (r=.16, p=.236). Results remained consistent when controlling for disease duration and age. This dissociation suggests the effect of dopamine is specific to beat perception and not reflective of a general improvement in auditory processing. High-dopamine patients outperformed both low-dopamine patients and age-matched controls, and this difference was driven by better detection of on-beat than off-beat events. Together, these results suggest that dopamine is associated with enhanced beat perception, potentially through modulation of temporal attention to expected beat times.
ER -