Surround Inhibition in Patients With Dystonia

March 3, 2008 updated by: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

The Study of Surround Inhibition in Patients With Dystonia

This study will use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to examine how the brain controls muscle movement in dystonia. Dystonia is a movement disorder in which involuntary muscle contractions cause uncontrolled twisting and repetitive movement or abnormal postures. Dystonia may be focal, involving just one region of the body, such as the hand, neck or face. Focal dystonia usually begins in adulthood. Generalized dystonia, on the other hand, generally begins in childhood or adolescence. Symptoms begin in one area and then become more widespread.

Healthy normal volunteers and patients with focal [or generalized] dystonia [between 21 and 65 years of age] may be eligible for this study.

Participants will have transcranial magnetic stimulation. For this test, subjects are seated in a comfortable chair, with their hands placed on a pillow on their lap. An insulated wire coil is placed on the scalp. A brief electrical current is passed through the coil, creating a magnetic pulse that stimulates the brain. (This may cause muscle, hand or arm twitching if the coil is near the part of the brain that controls movement, or it may induce twitches or transient tingling in the forearm, head or face muscles.) During the stimulation, subjects will be asked to either keep their hand relaxed or move a certain part of the hand in response to a loud beep or visual cue. Metal electrodes will be taped to the skin over the muscle for computer recording of the electrical activity of the hand and arm muscles activated by the stimulation.

There are three parts to the study, each lasting 2-3 hours and each performed on a separate day.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Detailed Description

The purpose of this study is to evaluate modulation of inhibition within the motor cortex before and during movement in patients with focal dystonia. For a selective movement or task, certain muscles are normally recruited and others are inhibited at the cortical level. We hypothesize that a disturbance in this cortical inhibitory control could result in a failure to focus the desired motor action within the motor cortex (disturbed center surround inhibition) and may account for co-contraction of antagonist muscles and overflow into extraneous muscles in dystonic patients. Intracortical inhibition (ICI) and silent period (SP) are two major cortical inhibitory mechanisms demonstrated by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Alteration in these inhibitory mechanisms have been studied in dystonia at rest, however, as dystonic symptoms mainly occur with selective tasks or movements we plan to study intracortical inhibitory mechanisms before and during movement using different TMS paradigms.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment

60

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Maryland
      • Bethesda, Maryland, United States, 20892
        • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Healthy volunteers entering the study must be free of serious somatic disease.

Patients must have focal dystonia.

Subjects who have a pacemaker, an implanted medication pump, a metal plate in the skull, metal objects inside the eye or skull (for example, after brain surgery or a shrapnel wound) or any recent (less than 3 months) brain lesions, will be excluded.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

January 1, 2002

Study Completion

July 1, 2002

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 15, 2002

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 15, 2002

First Posted (Estimate)

January 16, 2002

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

March 4, 2008

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 3, 2008

Last Verified

July 1, 2002

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 020088
  • 02-N-0088

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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