Dystonia is a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary muscle contractions that cause twisting movements and abnormal postures. Functional imaging consistently reveals cerebellar overactivity in dystonic patients regardless of the type or etiology of the disorder. To explore mechanisms that might explain the basis for the cerebellar overactivity in dystonia, normal mice were challenge...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Primary focal or segmental dystonia is a rare clinical condition. The clinical features of dystonia have not been evaluated in China. We performed a study to investigate the epidemiology of primary dystonia and its clinical variants in an adult population. METHODS A Botulinum Toxin Clinic-based study was conducted in the period 18 May through 8 October 2010 in East Chin...

BACKGROUND In juvenile Huntington disease (HD), dystonia as well as parkinsonism and eye movement abnormalities may be the predominant motor signs rather than chorea. Several patients have come to our attention with adult-onset HD in whom there is prominent dystonia and minimal chorea (ie, an adult-onset form of HD that resembles juvenile HD). OBJECTIVES To estimate the prevalence of these ca...

Background Lingual dystonia is a subtype of oromandibular dystonia, which is a movement disorder characterized by involuntary sustained or intermittent contraction of the masticatory and/or tongue muscles. Lingual dystonia interferes with important daily activities, such as speaking, chewing, and swallowing, resulting in vocational and social disability. Objective The aim of this study was to...

IMPORTANCE Dystonia is a heterogeneous neurologic disorder characterized by abnormal muscle contractions for which standard medical therapy is often inadequate. For such patients, therapeutic brain stimulation is becoming increasingly used. OBJECTIVES To review the evidence and effect sizes for treating different types of dystonia with different types of brain stimulation and to discuss recen...

Idiopathic scoliosis is a common disorder characterized by abnormal curvature of the spine with onset typically in adolescence. Adult-onset primary torsion dystonia (AOPTD) is a focal dystonia with onset in early-middle age consisting of abnormal twisting or directional movements and postures; common phenotypes include cervical dystonia, blepharospasm, and focal hand dystonia. Numerous case rep...

We performed a service-based epidemiological study of dystonia in Munich, Germany. Due to favourable referral and treatment patterns in the Munich area, we could provide confident data from dystonia patients seeking botulinum toxin treatment. A total of 230 patients were ascertained, of whom 188 had primary dystonia. Point prevalence ratios were estimated to be 10.1 (95% confidence interval 8.4...

There are likely numerous professional musicians who have not been diagnosed with Focal task specific dystonia, but nonetheless experience hand and muscle tension accompanied by a loss of motor control during performance. As such, it is important to implement preventative measures before performance begins suffer. The proportion all fall into this category unclear. This study aims investigate t...

BACKGROUND/AIMS In distinct movement disorders, transcranial sonography detects alterations of deep brain structures with higher sensitivity than other neuroimaging methods. Lenticular nucleus hyperechogenicity on transcranial sonography, thought to be caused by increased local copper content, has been reported as a characteristic finding in primary spontaneous dystonia. Here, we wanted to find...

Much attention has focused on the hypothesis that there is enhanced plasticity of sensorimotor circuits in patients with dystonia. A common experimental method to assess plasticity in dystonia research is paired associative stimulation (PAS). Excessive, nonfocal effects of PAS were observed in early studies of dystonia; however, these large effects have not been uniformly replicated. In this vi...