Response to the letter to the editor by Reilmann et al referring to our article titled “Motor cortex synchronization influences the rhythm of motor performance in premanifest Huntington's disease”: Reply To Letter To The Editor
2018
Background: In Huntington’s disease
there is evidence of structural damage in the motor system,
but it is still unclear how to link this to the behavioral
disorder of movement. One feature of choreic
movement is variable timing and coordination between
sequences of actions. We postulate this results from
desynchronization of neural activity in cortical motor
areas.
Objectives: The objective of this study was to explore
the ability to synchronize activity in a motor network
using transcranial magnetic stimulation and to relate
this to timing of motor performance.
Methods: We examined synchronization in oscillatory
activity of cortical motor areas in response to an external
input produced by a pulse of transcranial magnetic
stimulation. We combined this with EEG to compare the
response of 16 presymptomatic Huntington’s disease
participants with 16 age-matched healthy volunteers to
test whether the strength of synchronization relates to
the variability of motor performance at the following 2
tasks: a grip force task and a speeded-tapping task.
Results: Phase synchronization in response to M1 stimulation
was lower in Huntington’s disease than healthy volunteers
(P<.01), resulting in a reduced cortical activity at
global (P<.02) and local levels (P<.01). Participants who
showed better timed motor performance also showed
stronger oscillatory synchronization (r 5 20.356; P<.05)
and higher cortical activity (r 5 20.393; P<.05).
Conclusions: Our data may model the ability of the motor
command to respond to more subtle, physiological inputs
from other brain areas. This novel insight indicates that
impairments of the timing accuracy of synchronization and
desynchronization could be a physiological basis for some
key clinical features of Huntington’s disease.
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