People With Writer's Cramp, Have Brain Abnormalities?

Filed in archive Other Biotechnology News on July 28, 2007

According to a study published in the July 24, 2007 issue of Neurology® (the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology), people with serious cases of writer's cramp have brain abnormalities.

Writer's cramp is a form of dystonia, an involuntary, sustained muscle contraction. Writer's cramp often occurs in people who have used the same muscles repeatedly for years.

In a study that involved 30 people who had writer's cramp for an average of seven years with no other forms of dystonia have been found to have less brain tissue than healthy people in three areas of the brain that connect the senses and movement with their affected hand: the cerebellum, the thalamus, and the sensorimotor cortex.

According to study author Stéphane Lehéricy, MD, PhD, of Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, France:

"It's not clear whether these abnormalities are a cause or a result of the disease. The fact that the brain abnormalities are in the areas that control the affected hand suggests that these differences are specific to this problem.
Another theory is that the brain structure changed and adapted as a result of the sustained repetitive movement.

Studies have shown that people with no dystonia can experience brain changes due to learning new information, which supports this theory."

Read the full report.