Motor cortex reorganisation in Parkinson’s disease

Thickbroom, G.W., Byrnes, M.L., Walters, S., Stell, R. and Mastaglia, F.L. (2006) Motor cortex reorganisation in Parkinson’s disease. Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, 13 (6). pp. 639-642.

Abstract

Transcranial magnetic stimulation mapping of the motor cortical projection to the hand was performed in a group of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) of variable duration to determine whether there is evidence of cortical reorganisation. Map shifts were found in the majority of PD cases (12/15), in untreated early cases as well as treated cases of longer duration, and there was a correlation between inter-side difference in the severity of PD symptoms (Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale) and interhemispheric map displacement (r = 0.60; P = 0.018). These findings indicate that there is reorganisation of the corticomotor representation of the hand in PD, even at a relatively early stage of the disease, and suggest a dynamic process of reorganisation in the motor cortex due to an increase in the pallidal inhibitory inputs to the thalamo-cortical projections.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publisher:	Churchill Livingstone
Copyright:	© 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd
URI:	http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/25676

Item Control Page