Related Experiment Videos
Altered interhemispheric connectivity in individuals with Tourette's disorder
Kerstin J Plessen1, Tore Wentzel-Larsen, Kenneth Hugdahl
1New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Dr., Unit 74, New York, NY 10032, USA.
The American Journal of Psychiatry
|October 30, 2004
Summary
Tourette
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Neuroimaging
- Developmental Neuroscience
Background:
- The corpus callosum facilitates interhemispheric communication.
- Tourette's disorder pathophysiology may involve the corpus callosum.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate corpus callosum size and connectivity in Tourette's disorder.
- To compare these measures between individuals with Tourette's disorder and healthy controls.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional case-control study.
- 158 subjects with Tourette's disorder and 121 controls (ages 5-65).
- High-resolution MRI to assess corpus callosum size.
Main Results:
- Children with Tourette's had smaller corpus callosum size; adults had larger size, showing an age-by-diagnosis interaction.
- Corpus callosum size correlated with tic severity and inversely with prefrontal cortical volumes.
- These correlations were stronger in the Tourette's group.
Conclusions:
- Neural plasticity may lead to altered corpus callosum size in Tourette's disorder.
- This could impact interhemispheric neuronal trafficking and prefrontal cortical inhibition.
- Altered inhibition may contribute to tic regulation and cortical hyperexcitability.