The prolonged cortical silent period in patients with Huntington's disease.
Clin Neurophysiol
; 112(8): 1470-4, 2001 Aug.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-11459687
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
In a group of patients with Huntington's disease and age-matched controls, we studied the cortical silent period (SP) elicited by single transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses.METHODS:
We measured the area of the pre-stimulus electromyographic (EMG) activity, the area of the motor evoked potentials (MEPs) and the duration of the SP induced by stimuli delivered at an intensity of 150% of motor threshold with a round coil placed over the vertex. We determined the cortical SP by sampling only the 5 traces containing the shortest SPs and by collecting 10 consecutive unselected traces without selecting trials.RESULTS:
Patients and controls had normal EMG background areas, and MEP latencies and areas. Whereas data measured from selected trials gave a normal duration of the SP (patients, 154+/-58 ms; controls, 166+/-22 ms), data from unselected trials yielded a significantly longer SP duration in patients than in controls (356+/-251 vs. 159+/-44 ms) and also a larger variance and range.CONCLUSIONS:
We conclude that in Huntington's disease, an abnormal cortical SP is best sought by collecting unselected consecutive traces. We suggest that the prolonged SP in HD originates from a dysfunction of the mechanisms controlling the restart of voluntary movement after TMS.
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Doença de Huntington
/
Potenciais Somatossensoriais Evocados
/
Neurônios Motores
Limite:
Adult
/
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2001
Tipo de documento:
Article