"Life's a Twitch"
For the past three-hundred years, Tourette Syndrome has been speculated and theorized about. People with severe cases are usually the subject of many jokes and even outcast by their disorder. Science has come a long way, but there is still no cure, nor any facts about its causes. The disorder was named after George de la Tourette in 1883, a French Neurologist who studied it for many years. Several famous people including Mozart have been victims of this disorder. Tourette’s symptoms usually begin between the ages of three and eight with motor tics. Starting off with periods of intense eye blinking or some other facial movement. Phonetic tics such as bouts of throat clearing or sniffing may begin as early as three. In uncomplicated cases, tics peak in the second decade of life and many people get better by nineteen or twenty. Severe cases of this disorder arise in adulthood and can have self-injurious motor tics, such as hitting biting and yelling obscenities, racial slurs and gestures. A few theories about Tourette include: “hereditary degeneration, irritation of the motor neural systems by toxic substances, of a self-
of people with Parkinson’s or Huntington’s disease have shown its role in the control of movement. It also plays a role in cognitive function. Using a PET scan shows decrease use of glucose and less regional blood flow in this area of patients with Tourette’s. This means they might have a decrease in inhibitory activity on behavior. The basal ganglia connects with the thalamus and then synapses in the cortex. This circuit is mediated by dopamine, nor epinephrine and seratonin, and may explain the relationship between decreased inhibitory activity in the basal ganglia and the increased involuntary movement in tics. Recently, research is suggesting that neurochemical dysfunction and morphological abnormalities may begin in the Basal Ganglia. The Basal Ganglia is a dense region of five nuclei located beneath the cortex. Postmortem studies Currently, the only treatments available are far from perfect. Adrenergic agonist and neuroleptics such as guanfacine and clonidine. These drugs are used to control tics, by starting with a low dose and gradually increasing overtime. Sedation and irritability are common side-effects of these drugs. Neurolep
Some topics in this essay:
French Neurologist,
People Tourette’s,
Brain Tourette,
Using PET,
Living Tourette’s,
Tourette Syndrome,
Basal Ganglia,
Parkinson’s Huntington’s,
corpus callosum,
basal ganglia,
Life’s Twitch,
tourette’s syndrome,
phonetic tics,
yelling obscenities racial,
disorder tourette’s,
tics starting,
motor tics,
patients tourette’s,
obscenities racial,
inhibitory activity,
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Approximate Word count = 788
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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