Focal Dystonia of the Hand, And What the Brain Has To Do With It :: Biology Essays Research Papers

Focal Dystonia of the Hand, And What the Brain Has To Do With It The body is complicated, and often the origins of a power are all but obvious. Focal dystonia of the hand is one complaint whose underlying cause has been found in the more recent past. Although it bear be genetic (1), the form of focal dystonia of the hand I get word at here is caused by environmental factors (2). Focal dystonia of the hand is a condition characterized by a loss in motor construe of one or more fingers. A single muscle or base of muscles is involved muscles in the hand and forearm tense and tighten, with the go forth of making the hand (or part of it) curl (2). Musicians who have intensively practiced their instruments oer a number of years are a group most affected by this condition. The reason is that focal dystonia locoweed be caused by the repetitive movement of the fingers over a significant outcome of time. The condition was long known as occupational hand cramp. (3). It can easily be m isdiagnosed as guileless overuse or air of the hand (1). Although it may not be obvious at first of all sight of the symptoms, the level at which the problem is caused is not the hand, but the brain. Researchers at the University of Konstanz report overlap or smearing of the homuncular organization of the representation of the digits in the main(a) somatosensory cortex (3). Given that functions such as motor declare cross over from the right side of the body to be equal in the left hemisphere, they found that the distance between the representations of individual fingers was smaller in the somatosensory cortex side corresponding to the hand that had undergone continue repetitious training (the left hand in case of violin players for example). What does all this mean in terms of the brain? Looking at the central nervous system as an input-output system, in very simple terms we can observe that a specific input is presented over and over again - in this case the stimulation o f the fingers that play the violin - and as a result the organization within the box changes. much specifically, there is a matched correspondence between input and congenital representations of this input all fingers are individually represented on the somatosensory cortex. But somehow, as these regions of representation begin to smear or overlap, the one-to-one correspondence is blurred.