Sanaz Khosravani, Phd, a former doctoral student in the School of Kinesiology’s Human Sensorimotor Control Lab (HSCL), is first author on a new study that investigated the effect of neck Botulinum neurotoxin injection on proprioception and somatosensory-motor cortical processing in cervical dystonia (CD). 

CD is a neurological movement disorder characterized by involuntary contractions of the cervical musculature. It is known to be associated with proprioceptive dysfunction, which is the dysfunction in a patients’ ability to sense stimuli arising within the body regarding position, motion, and equilibrium. Injection of the neurotoxin Botulinum (BoNT) into the neck muscles is a main treatment to reduce CD symptoms temporarily. This study found that neck BoNT injections normalized the cortical processing of proprioceptive information, indicating that local injections in a dystonic muscle affect the central mechanisms of proprioceptive function in cervical dystonia. 

The study, Effect of Neck Botulinum Neurotoxin Injection on Proprioception and Somatosensory-Motor Cortical Processing in Cervical Dystonia, is published in the Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair journal. Dr. Khosravani is now with the Dept. of Otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School. Jürgen Konczak, Director HSCL, is the senior author on the publication.