Finally, data driven analyses of head/neck movements converge on an almost identical feature set across different types of dystonia, supporting the idea that dystonia subtype and severity map onto a "kinematic continuum"

We identified a set of clinically-inspired features from full video assessments that provide additional insights into disease severity, subtype & brain stim effects. We found: tremor matters! (but hasn't even been quantified in scores for a long time...)

We develop a visual computer vision framework which extracts a rich, yet intuitively interpretable set of kinematic features of head movement dynamics- from videos taken several years (or decades) ago in 7 different academic centers!

🧐 Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder characterized by complex, twisting and tremulous movement abnormalities. Clinical scores are simple and easy to administer, but fail to capture the true complexity of the dystonic phenotype.

8/ As strange as they are, the distortions experienced during AIWS open a window into the fascinating neural networks that shape our perceptual experience, which is obviously very malleable. So better look twice before you believe what you see :-)

7/ Next, we wondered how the lesion-based AIWS network relates to heterogeneous neuroimaging findings DURING AIWS episodes. We found a truly remarkable convergence, hinting at the validity of our findings beyond lesions.

6/ But how do our lesion findings relate to migraine, the most common etiology of AIWS? Recently, extrastriate area V3 (red) was identified as a hub of the "migraine network". And it closely aligns with the AIWS network (blue), significantly more so than other networks!

5/ The EBA is implicated in the perception of one's own body, another's body and helps discriminate the two. And IPL? It is an area strongly implicated in the human ability to judge size, space and dimension. Thinking about Alice's experience, it all starts making sense now...

🔬4/ The two connections were specific to AIWS when compared to >1000 lesions causing a wealth of other neuropsychiatric syndromes (@braincircuits.bsky.social💪). Look how focused these connections are on the right extrastriate body area (EBA) and the IPL. What do they do?🧐

3/ Using lesion network mapping, a technique developed to address this question, we found that more than 85% (!) of lesions causing AIWS are connected to two regions: the right extrastriate occipital cortex and left inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Let's zoom into this🧐.

2/Focal brain lesions causing AIWS can offer causal insights into its neuroanatomy. But: lesions occur in many different brain regions with little to no overlap. We wondered: how can lesions in many different locations cause these bizarre, yet stereotypical perceptual symptoms?

Have you ever felt like you're in a surreal world where sizes and scales are all warped? No, it's not a fantasy—it's a real medical condition! Come dive with me into this mind-bending phenomenon called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (AIWS):
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...