title: Impaired long-term potentiation-like plasticity of the trigeminal blink reflex circuit in Parkinson's disease.
abstract: We investigated the hypothesis that Parkinsons's disease (PD) is associated with abnormal plasticity of the neuronal circuits mediating blink reflex. We induced long-term potentiation (LTP)-like plasticity in trigeminal wide dynamic range neurons of the blink reflex circuit by pairing an high-frequency train of electrical stimuli over the right supraorbital nerve (SO) coincident with the R2 response elicited by a preceding SO stimulus. The facilitation of the R2 response after the induction protocol was markedly decreased in patients relative to controls. Treatment with dopaminergic drugs normalized the LTP-like plasticity of the R2 response. We conclude that nigrostriatal denervation disrupts LTP-like plasticity in the trigeminal reflex circuit.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, CUNY School of Medicine, New York, New York 10031, USA. fb@med.cuny.edu
authors.forename: Fortunato
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Battaglia
authors.forename: Maria Felice
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Ghilardi
authors.forename: Angelo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Quartarone
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bagnato
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Girlanda
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hallett
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001767:Blinking / Q000502:physiology*; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D004558:Electric Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects; D014276:Trigeminal Nerve / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000528:radiation effects