1043-3155 Pediatr Neurol Briefs pedneurbriefs Pediatr Neurol Briefs Pediatric Neurology Briefs Pediatr Neurol Briefs 2166-6482 1043-3155 2166-3155 Pediatric Neurology Briefs Publishers Chicago, IL, USA PNB-23-05-a 10.15844/pedneurbriefs-23-1-5 Movement Disorders Neurology Pediatrics Nervous System Diseases Child Development Brain Diseases Neurosurgery Child Infant Tourette Syndrome, Motor Cortex Excitability and Comorbidity http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0173-7931 Millichap J. Gordon MD 1 2 * Division of Neurology, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, IL Departments of Pediatrics and Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL Correspondence: Dr. J. Gordon Millichap, E-mail: jgmillichap@northwestern.edu 01 2009 01 12 2015 23 1 5 5 Copyright: © 2009 The Author(s) 2009 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Motor cortex excitability and comorbidity in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome

Motor cortex excitability in 29 untreated adult Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (TS) patients was measured using transcranial magnetic stimulation in a study at the Institute of Neurology, London, UK, and University of Ulm, Germany.

 Neuronal Circuits Intracortical Facilitation Latency Afferent Inhibition

Motor cortex excitability in 29 untreated adult Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (TS) patients was measured using transcranial magnetic stimulation in a study at the Institute of Neurology, London, UK, and University of Ulm, Germany. A group of comorbid TS and ADHD patients showed abnormalities of measures of motor cortex excitability, patients with uncomplicated TS had abnormal results in all measures except intracortical facilitation, and patients with comorbid TS and OCD had abnormal short-interval intracortical inhibition and thresholds but normal levels of intracortical facilitation and short latency afferent inhibition. TS with ADHD comorbidity is associated with more extensive changes in the excitability of motor cortex circuits than uncomplicated TS or TS+OCD. The phenotype of TS may be related to the extent of involvement of different neuronal circuits. [1]

COMMENT. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive method of measurement of motor cortex excitability while awake. TMS studies have demonstrated alterations of motor cortex excitability in patients with TS, uncomplicated and in those with ADHD or OCD comorbidity. Involvement of different neuronal circuits may be correlated with various subtypes of TS, alone or comorbid with ADHD or OCD.

Orth M Rothwell JC Motor cortex excitability and comorbidity in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2009 Jan 80 1 29 34 10.1136/jnnp.2008.149484 18931001