FUNCTIONAL IMAGING OF MOTOR ACTIVATION PATHWAYS IN VERBAL AND MOTOR TICS

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Tourette Syndrome (TS) is a disorder characterized by frequent motor and verbal tics. The exact mechanism of tic generation and the pathophysiology of TS is widely debated but believed to be related to abnormalities within frontal lobe-subcortical circuitry. The goal of this project is to further clarify the role of this motor-related circuitry in the pathophysiology of TS by examining patterns of brain activation involved in tic generation, motor response preparation and response inhibition. We propose to use fMRI to identify brain regions involved in the production of tics, to determine if patients with TS demonstrate different patterns of motor activation (including anomalous cerebral dominance) associated with response preparation, and to determine if patients with TS demonstrate different patterns of activation when performing a task that requires response inhibition.