EBD Blog

Professor Elizabeth Sowell and colleagues at the UCLA (CA, US) Department of Neurology have determined that there is a correlation between the thickness of cortices in certain regions of the brain and the presence of Tourette Sydrome (TS) in children. They used magnetic resonance imaging to compared the structure of brains of children with and without TS and found thinning in the frontal and parietal areas of those with TS.

Nature Clinical Practice Neurology (2008) 4, 466-467
doi:10.1038/ncpneuro0872

Thinning of sensorimotor cortices is associated with tics in children with Tourette syndrome

Sowell ER, Kan E, Yoshii J, Thompson PM, Bansal R, Xu D, Toga AW, Peterson BS.

Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Department of Neurology, University of California, Los Angeles, 635 Charles Young Drive South, Suite 225, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

The basal ganglia portions of cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) circuits have consistently been implicated in the pathogenesis of Tourette syndrome, whereas motor and sensorimotor cortices in these circuits have been relatively overlooked. Using magnetic resonance imaging, we detected cortical thinning in frontal and parietal lobes in groups of Tourette syndrome children relative to controls. This thinning was most prominent in ventral portions of the sensory and motor homunculi that control the facial, orolingual and laryngeal musculature that is commonly involved in tic symptoms. Correlations of cortical thickness in sensorimotor regions with tic symptoms suggest that these brain regions are important in the pathogenesis of Tourette syndrome.

Link to the PubMed abstract duplicated here.