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Review
. 2016 May;9(2):55-62.
doi: 10.14802/jmd.16014. Epub 2016 May 25.

Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation for Treatment of Focal Hand Dystonia: Update and Future Direction

Hyun Joo Cho  1 , Mark Hallett  1
Affiliations
Review

Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation for Treatment of Focal Hand Dystonia: Update and Future Direction

Hyun Joo Cho et al. J Mov Disord. 2016 May.

Abstract

Focal hand dystonia (FHD) is characterized by excessive and unwanted muscle activation in both the hand and arm resulting in impaired performance in particular tasks. Understanding the pathophysiology of FHD has progressed significantly for several decades and this has led to consideration of other potential therapies such as non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS). A number of studies have been conducted to develop new therapy for FHD using transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation. In this paper, we review previous studies and describe the potential therapeutic use of NIBS for FHD. We also discuss the future direction of NIBS to treat FHD.

Keywords: Focal hand dystonia; Non-invasive brain stimulation; Transcranial direct current stimulation; Transcranial magnetic stimulation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest

The authors have no financial conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Summary of NIBS methods for excitation and inhibition. rTMS: repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, PAS: paired associative stimulation, iTBS: intermittent theta burst stimulation, cTBS: continuous theta burst stimulation, tDCS: transcranial direct current stimulation, NIBS: non-invasive brain stimulation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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