TY  - JOUR
AU  - Brandt, V. C.
AU  - Nießen, Eva
AU  - Ganos, C.
AU  - Kahl, U.
AU  - Bäumer, T.
AU  - Münchau, A.
A3  - Cattaneo, Luigi
TI  - Altered Synaptic Plasticity in Tourette's Syndrome and Its Relationship to Motor Skill Learning
JO  - PLoS one
VL  - 9
IS  - 5
SN  - 1932-6203
CY  - Lawrence, Kan.
PB  - PLoS
M1  - FZJ-2014-03372
SP  - e98417
PY  - 2014
AB  - Article    About the Authors    Metrics    Comments    Related Content    Abstract    Introduction    Materials and Methods    Results    Discussion    Conclusions    Supporting Information    Acknowledgments    Author Contributions    References    Reader Comments (0)    FiguresAbstractGilles de la Tourette syndrome is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by motor and phonic tics that can be considered motor responses to preceding inner urges. It has been shown that Tourette patients have inferior performance in some motor learning tasks and reduced synaptic plasticity induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation. However, it has not been investigated whether altered synaptic plasticity is directly linked to impaired motor skill acquisition in Tourette patients. In this study, cortical plasticity was assessed by measuring motor-evoked potentials before and after paired associative stimulation in 14 Tourette patients (13 male; age 18–39) and 15 healthy controls (12 male; age 18–33). Tic and urge severity were assessed using the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale and the Premonitory Urges for Tics Scale. Motor learning was assessed 45 minutes after inducing synaptic plasticity and 9 months later, using the rotary pursuit task. On average, long-term potentiation-like effects in response to the paired associative stimulation were present in healthy controls but not in patients. In Tourette patients, long-term potentiation-like effects were associated with more and long-term depression-like effects with less severe urges and tics. While motor learning did not differ between patients and healthy controls 45 minutes after inducing synaptic plasticity, the learning curve of the healthy controls started at a significantly higher level than the Tourette patients' 9 months later. Induced synaptic plasticity correlated positively with motor skills in healthy controls 9 months later. The present study confirms previously found long-term improvement in motor performance after paired associative stimulation in healthy controls but not in Tourette patients. Tourette patients did not show long-term potentiation in response to PAS and also showed reduced levels of motor skill consolidation after 9 months compared to healthy controls. Moreover, synaptic plasticity appears to be related to symptom severity.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000338101500056
C6  - pmid:24878665
DO  - DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0098417
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/153915
ER  -