Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 39, Issue 1, 1 January 1996, Pages 33-41
Biological Psychiatry

Original article
Sensorimotor gating in boys with Tourette's syndrome and ADHD: Preliminary results

https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-3223(95)00101-8Get rights and content

Deficits in sensorimotor gating, defined by prepulse inhibition (PPI), have been associated with subcortical dopaminergic overactivity in animal and clinical studies. Utilizing supraorbital nerve electrical stimulation, we produced adequate blink responses and measured decreases in amplitude resulting from electric prestimuli just above sensory threshold. Seven boys comorbid for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a tic disorder had significantly reduced PPI, compared to 14 screened controls and seven boys with ADHD alone. If independently replicated, these results may reflect greater neurologic immaturity in these comorbid subjects. Alternatively, these findings, together with other converging lines of evidence, suggest that deficient pallidal inhibition may be etiologically related to tic and movement disorders.

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      By using a similar approach, Burt et al. found decreased NMDA receptor function in the hippocampus of rats exposed to LPS during gestation, a treatment that also rendered this structure more susceptible to the effects of stress (Burt et al., 2013). Prepulse inhibition (PPI) impairments are typically found in schizophrenic patients (Braff et al., 1978, 2001; Kumari et al., 1999) but also in other pathologies such as Huntington’s Disease (Swerdlow et al., 1995), obsessive compulsive disorder (Ahmari et al., 2012; Hoenig et al., 2005; Swerdlow et al., 1993), Asperger’s syndrome (Mcalonan et al., 2002), Klinefelter syndrome (van Rijn et al., 2011), Fragile-X syndrome (Frankland et al., 2004) and Tourette syndrome (Castellanos et al., 1996). PPI reductions have also been reproduced in animal models of symptoms of schizophrenia (Swerdlow et al., 2000), which makes it a helpful tool when assessing therapeutic interventions or potential causal factors.

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