What Happens Inside the Tourette Brain

The sensorimotor cortex thins with age in these patients, and cortical thickness correlates with tic severity and number.

Individuals with Tourette syndrome (TS) have reduced basal ganglia volumes, compared with healthy controls. However, the morphometry of the sensorimotor cortex in TS remains unknown. To learn more, researchers compared cortical thickness in 25 children with TS (age range, 7–18) and in 35 healthy, age- and sex-matched controls. The researchers measured cortical thickness in ventral and dorsal prefrontal, frontal, and parietal areas; they then assessed the severity and number of facial and body tics.

TS patients had significantly thinner ventral frontal and parietal areas, which control sensory and motor aspects of facial, orolingual, and laryngeal musculature. Thinner cortices in ventral portions of sensorimotor areas correlated with a higher…

Reviewing Author

Barbara Geller, MD

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose

Barbara Geller, MD

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose