Dysfunctional neural activity linked to musician’s dystonia
13th July 2011
By Staff writer
A STUDY involving pianists who have musician’s dystonia (MD) has identified noisy neuronal activity as the likely source of their possibly career-ending problem.
German researchers looked closely at the brain structure and the note-playing accuracy of 11 elite-level pianists with MD, a neurological condition which affects hand function and can be misdiagnosed as an over-use injury.
The pianists had “a total life practice time of more than 10,000 hours”, and MD-related observations were compared to a matched group of healthy pianists.