The Pathophysiology of Tourette Syndrome: a Multimodal Study (PTS)

Zhejiang University

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Tourette Syndrome

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02497807

SAHZJU_CCBD_TouretteS

Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to characterize the functional and anatomical connectivity changes in Tourette syndrome and its relation with iron deficiency.

Full description

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a childhood-onset chronic neuropsychiatric disorder with an increasing prevalence (range 0.05-3%).The investigators previous study showed that lower serum ferritin and iron levels in children with Tourette syndrome than in healthy children. The exact mechanism explaining how iron deficiency contributes to the pathophysiology of TS is unclear.One question is whether or not peripheral iron deficiency in children with Tourette syndrome can inflence the brain extrapyramid structure and resting state brain function？Another question is how well peripheral iron indices correlate with central iron content？ The third question is for TS children with peripheral iron deficiency, oral iron supplement (5mg/Kg/d) at least 8 weeks, the peripheral iron indicies return to normal levels, how the brain iron contents and the relative structure and brain function change?, To test the above-metioned hypothesis, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) , diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) are applied to investigate the volume change of extrapyramid structure such as caudate nucleus and putamen, resting-state brain function and brain iron content before and after oral iron supplementation in TS children with peripheral iron deficiency, TS children with peripheral normal iron levels and normal healthy controls. The investigators hope to confirm that iron deficiency may play a causal role in the dopamine metabolism and it helps to further explore the pathophysiology of Tourette syndrome and also would contribute to significant advance in the therapeutic option for TS children with peripheral iron deficiency.

Enrollment: 40 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 6 to 12 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 6-12 years old
• Characterized by vocal tic and muscle twitch
• No positive signs was found through neurological examination, no significant psychomotor retardation,

Exclusion criteria

• Hepatolenticular degeneration
• Rheumatic chorea
• Myoclonic epilepsy
• History of mental disease or brain trauma