Dataset Information

Stereotactic Lesioning of the Thalamic Vo Nucleus for the Treatment of Writer's Cramp (Focal Hand Dystonia).

ABSTRACT: Writer's cramp (focal hand dystonia) is a sporadic focal dystonia that affects a specific part of the upper limb causing excessive co-contraction of antagonistic muscles. It usually presents as a task-specific dystonia, including, among others, writing of a character or playing a musical instrument. Although treatments for writer's cramp exist, medical therapy often results in unsatisfactory outcomes in patients with this type of dystonia. However, accumulating evidence suggests that long-term and complete remission of various types of focal hand dystonia can be achieved with stereotactic ablation or deep brain stimulation of the thalamic ventral-oralis complex (Vo) nucleus, which includes both the ventralis oralis posterior and anterior nuclei of the thalamus. Following the striking therapeutic success of Vo thalamotomy in patients with medically-refractory writer's cramp, we here introduce the use of stereotactic lesioning of the thalamic Vo nucleus for the treatment of this focal type of dystonia. Our findings identified patients with disabling writer's cramp (i.e., it prevents their success in their professional careers) to be good candidates for positive outcome with this surgical technique.

SUBMITTER: Shimizu T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6275197 | biostudies-other | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Stereotactic Lesioning of the Thalamic Vo Nucleus for the Treatment of Writer's Cramp (Focal Hand Dystonia).

Shimizu Takeshi T Maruo Tomoyuki T Miura Shimpei S Kishima Haruhiko H Ushio Yukitaka Y Goto Satoshi S

Frontiers in neurology 20181126

Writer's cramp (focal hand dystonia) is a sporadic focal dystonia that affects a specific part of the upper limb causing excessive co-contraction of antagonistic muscles. It usually presents as a task-specific dystonia, including, among others, writing of a character or playing a musical instrument. Although treatments for writer's cramp exist, medical therapy often results in unsatisfactory outcomes in patients with this type of dystonia. However, accumulating evidence suggests that long-term a ...[more]

PMID: 30534112

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Project description:Humans have a distinguishing ability for fine motor control that is subserved by a highly evolved cortico-motor neuronal network. The acquisition of a particular motor skill involves a long series of practice movements, trial and error, adjustment and refinement. At the cortical level, this acquisition begins in the parieto-temporal sensory regions and is subsequently consolidated and stratified in the premotor-motor cortex. Task-specific dystonia can be viewed as a corruption or loss of motor control confined to a single motor skill. Using a multimodal experimental approach combining neuroimaging and non-invasive brain stimulation, we explored interactions between the principal nodes of the fine motor control network in patients with writer's cramp and healthy matched controls. Patients and healthy volunteers underwent clinical assessment, diffusion-weighted MRI for tractography, and functional MRI during a finger tapping task. Activation maps from the task-functional MRI scans were used for target selection and neuro-navigation of the transcranial magnetic stimulation. Single- and double-pulse TMS evaluation included measurement of the input-output recruitment curve, cortical silent period, and amplitude of the motor evoked potentials conditioned by cortico-cortical interactions between premotor ventral (PMv)-motor cortex (M1), anterior inferior parietal lobule (aIPL)-M1, and dorsal inferior parietal lobule (dIPL)-M1 before and after inducing a long term depression-like plastic change to dIPL node with continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation in a randomized, sham-controlled design. Baseline dIPL-M1 and aIPL-M1 cortico-cortical interactions were facilitatory and inhibitory, respectively, in healthy volunteers, whereas the interactions were converse and significantly different in writer's cramp. Baseline PMv-M1 interactions were inhibitory and similar between the groups. The dIPL-PMv resting state functional connectivity was increased in patients compared to controls, but no differences in structural connectivity between the nodes were observed. Cortical silent period was significantly prolonged in writer's cramp. Making a long term depression-like plastic change to dIPL node transformed the aIPL-M1 interaction to inhibitory (similar to healthy volunteers) and cancelled the PMv-M1 inhibition only in the writer's cramp group. These findings suggest that the parietal multimodal sensory association region could have an aberrant downstream influence on the fine motor control network in writer's cramp, which could be artificially restored to its normal function.

Dataset Information

Stereotactic Lesioning of the Thalamic Vo Nucleus for the Treatment of Writer's Cramp (Focal Hand Dystonia).

Publications

Stereotactic Lesioning of the Thalamic Vo Nucleus for the Treatment of Writer's Cramp (Focal Hand Dystonia).

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