title: Feedforward somatosensory inhibition is normal in cervical dystonia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Insufficient cortical inhibition is a key pathophysiological finding in dystonia. Subliminal sensory stimuli were reported to transiently inhibit somatosensory processing. Here we investigated whether such subliminal feedforward inhibition is reduced in patients with cervical dystonia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixteen cervical dystonia patients and 16 matched healthy controls performed a somatosensory detection task. We measured the drop in sensitivity to detect a threshold-level digital nerve shock when it was preceded by a subliminal conditioning shock, compared to when it was not.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Subliminal conditioning shocks reduced sensitivity to threshold stimuli to a similar extent in both patients and controls, suggesting that somatosensory subliminal feedforward inhibition is normal in cervical dystonia.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Somatosensory feedforward inhibition was normal in this group of cervical dystonia patients. Our results qualify previous concepts of a general dystonic deficit in sensorimotor inhibitory processing.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Elisa R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Ferrè
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK; Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK; Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Christos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ganos
authors.affiliation: Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Kailash P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Bhatia
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK. Electronic address: p.haggard@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Haggard
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014103:Torticollis / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology*
keywords: Cervical dystonia; Cortical inhibition; Subliminal feedforward inhibition