Category: Dystonia (Other)
Objective: To investigate symptom- and emotion-related sensations in dystonia.
Background: Dystonia is a chronic movement disorder characterized by excessive muscle activity leading to involuntary movement and postures. However, dystonia also is associated with several non-motor symptoms, including emotional issues. Emotions impact our bodies through the sensorimotor and autonomic nervous systems, which are reflected in bodily sensations that are specific for each emotion. These emotion-related bodily sensations were recently discovered to be abnormal in Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative movement disorder. However, it is not known if this non-motor phenomenon extends to other neurological disorders, such as dystonia.
Method: We investigated 140 individuals with dystonia and 79 controls using bodily symptom mapping, including sensorimotor symptoms and basic emotions. In addition, we studied cervical dystonia patients with GPi-DBS (n=8) both on and off stimulation to preliminary investigate if the bodily sensations could be modulated using brain stimulation.
Results: The bodily maps of sensorimotor symptoms in individuals with dystonia aligned with the body regions affected by dystonia. Compared with controls, dystonia was associated with abnormal patterns of the emotion-related sensations (P<0.05) but, unlike the sensorimotor symptoms, emotion-related sensations did not align with the body parts affected by dystonia. Finally, GPi-DBS was shown to normalize the bodily sensation maps, which was associated with DBS-induced brain metabolic activation measured with [18F]FDG PET (with control pattern increase and dystonia pattern decrease, r = 0.81 and -0.86, respectively; P<0.05) and motor improvement (with control pattern increase and dystonia pattern decrease, r = 0.77 and -0.74, respectively; P<0.05).
Conclusion: The results of this study show that dystonia is associated with abnormal emotion-related sensations that are responsive for DBS, suggesting origin in the central nervous system.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
K. Niemi, E. Ottela, A. Huovinen, E. Glerean, L. Nummenmaa, E. Jaakkola, J. Joutsa. Bodily Maps of Symptoms and Emotions in Dystonia [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2025; 40 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/bodily-maps-of-symptoms-and-emotions-in-dystonia/. Accessed October 5, 2025.« Back to 2025 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/bodily-maps-of-symptoms-and-emotions-in-dystonia/