Abnormal Activation of the Primary Somatosensory Cortex in Spasmodic Dysphonia: An fMRI Study

Spasmodic dysphonia (SD) is a task-specific focal dystonia of unknown pathophysiology, characterized by involuntary spasms in the laryngeal muscles during speaking. Our aim was to identify symptom-specific functional brain activation abnormalities in adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD) and abductor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2010-11, Vol.20 (11), p.2749-2759
Main Authors: Simonyan, Kristina, Ludlow, Christy L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Dysphonia - pathology
Dysphonia - physiopathology
Female
Humans
laryngeal dystonia
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Middle Aged
Nerve Net - pathology
Nerve Net - physiopathology
neuroimaging
Somatosensory Cortex - pathology
Somatosensory Cortex - physiopathology
voice production
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Summary:Spasmodic dysphonia (SD) is a task-specific focal dystonia of unknown pathophysiology, characterized by involuntary spasms in the laryngeal muscles during speaking. Our aim was to identify symptom-specific functional brain activation abnormalities in adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD) and abductor spasmodic dysphonia (ABSD). Both SD groups showed increased activation extent in the primary sensorimotor cortex, insula, and superior temporal gyrus during symptomatic and asymptomatic tasks and decreased activation extent in the basal ganglia, thalamus, and cerebellum during asymptomatic tasks. Increased activation intensity in SD patients was found only in the primary somatosensory cortex during symptomatic voice production, which showed a tendency for correlation with ADSD symptoms. Both SD groups had lower correlation of activation intensities between the primary motor and sensory cortices and additional correlations between the basal ganglia, thalamus, and cerebellum during symptomatic and asymptomatic tasks. Compared with ADSD patients, ABSD patients had larger activation extent in the primary sensorimotor cortex and ventral thalamus during symptomatic task and in the inferior temporal cortex and cerebellum during symptomatic and asymptomatic voice production. The primary somatosensory cortex shows consistent abnormalities in activation extent, intensity, correlation with other brain regions, and symptom severity in SD patients and, therefore, may be involved in the pathophysiology of SD.
ISSN:1047-3211
1460-2199
DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhq023