Rinsho Shinkeigaku (Clinical Neurology)

Symposium 2

Pathophysiology of movement disorders

Atsushi Nambu

Division of System Neurophysiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences

Malfunctions of the basal ganglia cause movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and dystonia. Several models have been proposed to explain the pathophysiology of these disorders: (1) Firing rate model: activity imbalance between the direct and indirect pathways changes the mean firing rate of output nuclei of the basal ganglia and induces hypokinetic or hyperkinetic movement disorders; (2) Firing pattern model: oscillatory and/or synchronized activity observed in the basal ganglia disturbs information processing in the basal ganglia, resulting in motor symptoms; (3) Dynamic activity model: movement-related activity changes through the direct and indirect pathways disrupt balance between movement-related inhibition and surrounding excitation in the output nuclei, and induce motor symptoms. Each model will be critically discussed in this review.
Full Text of this Article in Japanese PDF (194K)

(CLINICA NEUROL, 52: 1198|1200, 2012)
key words: basal ganglia, movement disorder, Parkinson's disease, pathophysiology

(Received: 24-May-12)