Study of Tics in Patients With Tourette's Syndrome and Chronic Motor Tic Disorder
Completed
Conditions studied: Tourette Syndrome, Tic Disorders
In brief
This study will investigate which areas of the brain are primarily involved in and responsible for tics in patients with Tourette's syndrome and chronic motor disorder. Tourette's syndrome is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by motor and vocal tics and is associated with behavioral and emotional disturbances, including symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Chronic motor disorder has the same characteristics as Tourette's syndrome, except that patients do not have vocal tics. Healthy normal volunteers and patients with Tourette's syndrome or chronic motor tic disorder between 18 and 65 years of age may be eligible for this study. Candidates will be screened with a medical history and physical and neurological examinations. Participants will undergo positron emission tomography (PET) scanning to study tics under three conditions- spontaneous tics, suppression of tics, and sleep-to determine which areas of the brain are responsible for generation of tics. For this procedure, the subject is injected with H215O, a radioactive substance similar to water. A special camera detects the radiation emitted by the H215O, allowing measurement of brain blood flow. Subjects will receive up to 20 injections of H215O during the scanning. Participants will be asked not to sleep the entire night before the test. Before the scan, both patients and volunteers will have EEG electrodes placed on their heads to record the electrical activity of their brains. Patients will also have EMG electrodes placed in areas of the body where tics occur. A small catheter (plastic tube) will be placed in an arm vein for injecting the radioactive tracers, and a mask will be placed on the face to help keep the head still during scanning. The mask has large openings for eyes, nose and mouth, so that it does not interfere with talking or breathing. The entire test takes about 4 hours. During this time, the subject will sleep for 1.5 hours either at the beginning or end of the scan. For the other 2.5 hours, scans will be done every 10 minutes for 1 minute under the different conditions of tic suppression or release of tics. On a separate day, participants will also undergo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a diagnostic test that uses a magnetic field and radio waves to produce images of the brain. For this procedure, the subject lies still on a stretcher that is moved into the scanner (a narrow cylinder containing the magnet). ...
Key facts
- Study ID
- NCT00033995
- Run by
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
- People needed
- 46
- Starts
- 2002-04-17
- Expected to finish
- 2009-02-17
- Last updated by the study team
- 2017-07-02
Who can join
Age: 18 and older, up to 65. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.
You may not qualify if…
- Patients younger than 18 or older than 65 years old will be excluded from the study. We are excluding patients older than 65 years because of possibility of age-related neurological disorders such as stroke and dementia.
- Patients with MRI findings consistent with brain tumors, strokes, trauma or AVMs will be excluded.
- Patients with progressive neurological disorders other than TS or chronic motor tic disorder and significant other pathology will be excluded.
- Patients with a history of significant medical disorders, or requiring chronic treatment with other drugs, which cannot be stopped, will be excluded.
- Patients with cancer will be excluded.
- Patients not capable of giving an informed consent will be excluded.
- Patients who are pregnant will be excluded.
Where it is running
- National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, 9000 Rockville Pike — Bethesda, Maryland, United States
Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov
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