Brain network differences in people with focal dystonia, including voice and hand forms

Who can take part

• Patients will have clinically documented focal dystonia
• Unaffected relatives of patients with focal dystonia
• Healthy controls will be healthy volunteers with a negative history of neurological, laryngeal or psychiatric problems
• Age from 21 to 80 years
• Native English speakers
• Right-handedness (based on Edinburgh Handedness Inventory)

Who cannot take part

• Patients who are not symptomatic due to treatment with botulinum toxin injections into the laryngeal muscles. The duration of positive effects of botulinum toxin vary from patient to patient but lasts on average for 3-4 months. All patients will be evaluated to ensure that they are fully symptomatic prior to entering the study
• To avoid the possibility of confounding effects of drugs acting upon the central nervous system, all study participants will be questioned about any prescribed or over-the-counter medications as part of their initial intake screening. Those patients who receive medication(s) affecting the central nervous system will be excluded from the study
• Subjects with past or present medical history of (a) neurological problems, such as stroke, movement disorders (other than dystonia in the patient groups), brain tumors, traumatic brain injury with loss of consciousness, ataxias, myopathies, myasthenia gravis, demyelinating diseases, alcoholism, drug depend-ence; (b) psychiatric problems, such as schizophrenia, major and/or bipolar depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder; (c) laryngeal problems, such as vocal fold paralysis, paresis, vocal fold nodules and polyps, carcinoma, chronic laryngitis
• The patients will be asked whether they have undergone any head, neck, or hand surgeries, which resulted in changes in regional anatomy or innervation. Because brain, hand and laryngeal surgery may potentially lead to the brain structure and function re-organization, all patients with history of brain, hand and/or laryngeal surgery will be excluded from the study
• Subjects who have tattoos, ferromagnetic objects in their bodies (e.g., implanted stimulators, surgical clips, prosthesis, artificial heart valve, etc.) that cannot be removed for the purpose of study participation
• Subjects who are incapable of giving an informed consent
• Pregnant or breastfeeding women until a time when they are no longer pregnant or breastfeeding. All women of childbearing potential will have a urine pregnancy test performed, which must be negative for participation in the imaging studies
• Patients with other forms of dystonia
• Patients who have dystonia symptoms at rest in order to avoid the potential confound of dystonic spasms occurring during the scanning