The Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory (HSCL), directed by School of Kinesiology professor Jürgen Konczak, PhD, recently published a paper regarding cervical dystonia treatment and neuro function in the Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair Journal. The publication, “Effect of Neck Botulinum Neurotoxin Injection on Proprioception and Somatosensory-Motor Cortical Processing in Cervical Dystonia,” responds to the question, “how does Botulinum toxin affect proprioception and brain processing in cervical dystonia (CD)?” 

The study was led by former doctoral student Sanaz Khosravani, PhD, who is a current postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. The research concluded that an abnormal perception of joint position is an underlying feature of cervical dystonia. This faulty perception was associated with excessive activity in sensorimotor areas of the brain. Botulinum injections to the dystonic neck muscle normalized cortical processing in these areas, which also improved the accuracy of the position sense.