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Review
. 2020 Aug;238(7-8):1645-1657.
doi: 10.1007/s00221-020-05833-8. Epub 2020 Jul 7.

Neurophysiological insights in dystonia and its response to deep brain stimulation treatment

Stephen Tisch  1   2 , Patricia Limousin  3
Affiliations
Review

Neurophysiological insights in dystonia and its response to deep brain stimulation treatment

Stephen Tisch et al. Exp Brain Res. 2020 Aug.

Abstract

Dystonia is a movement disorder characterised by involuntary muscle contractions resulting in abnormal movements, postures and tremor. The pathophysiology of dystonia is not fully understood but loss of neuronal inhibition, excessive sensorimotor plasticity and defective sensory processing are thought to contribute to network dysfunction underlying the disorder. Neurophysiology studies have been important in furthering our understanding of dystonia and have provided insights into the mechanism of effective dystonia treatment with pallidal deep brain stimulation. In this article we review neurophysiology studies in dystonia and its treatment with Deep Brain Stimulation, including Transcranial magnetic stimulation studies, studies of reflexes and sensory processing, and oscillatory activity recordings including local field potentials, micro-recordings, EEG and evoked potentials.

Keywords: Dystonia; Gpi DBS; Neurophysiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

P Limousin has received lecture honorarium from Medtronic and Boston Scientific and a grant from Boston Scientific.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Effect of PAS on resting MEP amplitude with GPi DBS ON and OFF in dystonia patients. Note that DBS ON abolishes excitatory post-PAS plasticity (decrease in MEP amplitude), whereas DBS OFF and control subjects show preserved PAS response
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Time-course of changes in presynaptic phase of H-reflex reciprocal inhibition (RI) after GPi DBS and clinical improvement. A line is superimposed at 0.6, which represents a normal level of RI. Clinical improvement and changes in RI correlate and follow a logarithmic curve
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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