[Effect of dentatotomy on muscle tonus in infantile cerebral palsy]

The article deals with the results of the quantitative study of the muscular tonus in patients with infantile cerebral paralysis by the method of passive sinusoid movements of the arm at the elbow joint at various rates, with a period of T = Is to T = 200s and its assessment by the value of the mechanical resistance of the extremity in the region of high (T = I--4s) and low rates (T = 50s). The spectromechanomyographic method of examination revealed two components in the muscular tonus: an increase in the region of high rates, which were identify as the spastic component of the muscular tonus, and an increase in the region of low rates, which is identified with the rigid component of the muscular tonus. Operative destruction of the cerebellar dentate nuclei in patients with infantile cerebral paralysis naturally reduces this spastic component, but hardly changes the rigid component. One of the factors causing changes in the shape and amplitude of choreothetoid hyperkinesia in patients with infantile cerebral paralysis may evidently be the redistribution of the tonus in different muscular groups and changes in the correlations between its spastic and rigid components.