Repository logo

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne

Infoscience

  • English
  • French
Log In
  1. Home
  2. Academic and Research Output
  3. Journal articles
  4. The role of the inferior parietal lobule in writer's cramp
 
research article

The role of the inferior parietal lobule in writer's cramp

Merchant, Shabbir Hussain, I
•
Frangos, Eleni
•
Parker, Jacob
Show more
June 1, 2020
Brain

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 neuronavigation 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 thetaburst 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.

  • Details
  • Metrics
Type
research article
DOI
10.1093/brain/awaa138
Web of Science ID

WOS:000541788700023

Author(s)
Merchant, Shabbir Hussain, I
Frangos, Eleni
Parker, Jacob
Bradson, Megan
Wu, Tianxia
Vial-Undurraga, Felipe
Leodori, Giorgio
Bushnell, M. C.
Horovitz, Silvina G.
Hallett, Mark
Show more
Date Issued

2020-06-01

Publisher

OXFORD UNIV PRESS

Published in
Brain
Volume

143

Start page

1766

End page

1779

Subjects

Clinical Neurology

•

Neurosciences

•

Neurosciences & Neurology

•

transcranial magnetic stimulation

•

cortical silent period

•

primary motor cortex

•

ventral premotor cortex

•

theta-burst stimulation

•

posterior parietal

•

task

•

organization

•

modulation

•

dystonia

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
UPHUMMEL  
Available on Infoscience
June 19, 2021
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/179264
Logo EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
  • Contact
  • infoscience@epfl.ch

  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on X
  • Follow us on Youtube
AccessibilityLegal noticePrivacy policyCookie settingsEnd User AgreementGet helpFeedback

Infoscience is a service managed and provided by the Library and IT Services of EPFL. © EPFL, tous droits réservés