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Huber L, Kassavetis P, Gulban OF, Hallett M, Horovitz SG. Laminar VASO fMRI in focal hand dystonia patients. DYSTONIA 2023; 2. [PMID: 37035517 PMCID: PMC10081516 DOI: 10.3389/dyst.2023.10806] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
Focal Hand Dystonia (FHD) is a disabling movement disorder characterized by involuntary movements, cramps and spasms. It is associated with pathological neural microcircuits in the cortical somatosensory system. While invasive preclinical modalities allow researchers to probe specific neural microcircuits of cortical layers and columns, conventional functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) cannot resolve such small neural computational units. In this study, we take advantage of recent developments in ultra-high-field MRI hardware and MR-sequences to capture altered digit representations and laminar processing in FHD patients. We aim to characterize the capability and challenges of layer-specific imaging and analysis tools in resolving laminar and columnar structures in clinical research setups. We scanned N = 4 affected and N = 5 unaffected hemispheres at 7T and found consistent results of altered neural microcircuitry in FHD patients: 1) In affected hemispheres of FHD patients, we found a breakdown of ordered finger representation in the primary somatosensory cortex, as suggested from previous low-resolution fMRI. 2) In affected primary motor cortices of FHD patients, we furthermore found increased fMRI activity in superficial cortico-cortical neural input layers (II/III), compared to relatively weaker activity in the cortico-spinal output layers (Vb/VI). Overall, we show that layer-fMRI acquisition and analysis tools have the potential to address clinically-driven neuroscience research questions about altered computational mechanisms at the spatial scales that were previously only accessible in animal models. We believe that this study paves the way for easier translation of preclinical work into clinical research in focal hand dystonia and beyond.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laurentius Huber
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
| | - Panagiotis Kassavetis
- Department of Neurology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
- Human Motor Control Section, NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States
| | - Omer Faruk Gulban
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
- Brain Innovation, Maastricht, Netherlands
| | - Mark Hallett
- Human Motor Control Section, NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States
| | - Silvina G. Horovitz
- Human Motor Control Section, NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD, United States
- CORRESPONDENCE Silvina G. Horovitz,
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Reply to 'Topographical layer imaging as a tool to track neurodegenerative disease spread in M1'. Nat Rev Neurosci 2021; 22:69. [PMID: 33154582 DOI: 10.1038/s41583-020-00405-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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