Stimulating Muscles May Improve Musician’s Dystonia

Musician’s dystonia occurs in musicians who have practiced particular complicated movements for years. The muscle spasms are usually painless and generally occur only when playing the instrument.

For the study, researchers applied low-amplitude vibration to the hand muscles in 24 people: six who had musician’s dystonia, six professional musicians with no dystonia, six healthy non-musicians, and six people with writer’s cramp, which is another type of dystonia that occurs in people while they write.

Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, the researchers evaluated the reaction in the sensorimotor area of the brain back to the muscle during vibration of a single hand muscle. In healthy people, the vibration of a muscle increases the amount of brain messages back to the muscle and at the same time reduces the amount of messages to muscles that did not receive vibration. In people with musician’s dystonia, vibration in any one hand muscle increases the amount of messages to all hand muscles. In writer’s cramp, vibration to one muscle has no effect on any muscle.

Now, in an intervention that lasts only 15 minutes, muscle vibration was applied to a thumb muscle, and the participant’s attention was either directed on that muscle itself or away from it. The reaction of the brain’s sensorimotor areas to the muscles was then tested again using transcranial magnetic stimulation.

“Our hope is that stimulation can retrain how the brain responds,” said study author Karin Rosenkranz, MD, with UCL Institute of Neurology in London, United Kingdom.

The study found that the vibration intervention in which subjects had to attend to their thumb muscle tended to restore a more normal pattern in the sensorimotor area of the brain in people with musician’s dystonia. This effect was less pronounced in the people with writer’s cramp.

“More research is needed to see if prolonged use of stimulation can improve hand motor function,” Rosenkranz said. “These results also suggest that the underlying mechanism of the disorder may be different in musician’s dystonia and writer’s cramp.”

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 20,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as epilepsy, dystonia, migraine, Huntington’s disease, and dementia. For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit www.aan.com.

Media Contact

Angela Babb American Academy of Neurology

More Information:

http://www.aan.com/press

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Results for control of pollutants in water

Brazilian scientists tested a simple and sustainable method for monitoring and degrading a mixture of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, compounds present in fossil fuels and industrial waste. An article published in the journal Catalysis…

A tandem approach for better solar cells

Perovskite-based solar cells were first proved in 2009 to have excellent light-absorbing properties of methylammonium lead bromide and methylammonium lead iodide, collectively referred to as lead halide perovskites or, more…

The behavior of ant queens is shaped by their social environment

Specialization of ant queens as mere egg-layers is reversible / Queen behavioral specialization is initiated and maintained by the presence of workers. The queens in colonies of social insects, such…

Partners & Sponsors