School of Kinesiology professor, and director of the Human Sensorimotor Control Lab (HSCL), Jürgen Konczak, PhD, is the senior author of a recent article published in the journal Neurology, one of the most highly cited peer-reviewed journals in neurology.

The article, “Tactile and proprioceptive dysfunction differentiates cervical dystonia with and without tremor,” reports on research about cervical dystonia (CD), a neurological disease that induces unwanted muscle spasms in the neck muscles and leads to abnormal head postures. There is currently no cure for this disease. The objective of the study was to determine whether the different types of CD (those with a tremor and those without) express different types and levels of somatosensory impairment.

An interdisciplinary research team consisting of neurologists and physical therapists from the University of Genoa and engineering colleagues from the Italian Institute of Technology used motion capture and robotic technology to determine deficits in tactile sensing and the patients’ ability to sense body position and motion (proprioception). They found that only patients with head tremor show an altered perception of head posture. This finding provides a new insight into the disease mechanism, which, may ultimately help to tailor new treatments for each subtype of CD by addressing their individual differences in the underlying disease mechanism.