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Journal ArticleDOI

Generalized muscular stiffness, fasciculations, and myokymia of peripheral nerve origin.

William E. Wallis, +2 more
- 01 May 1970 - 
- Vol. 22, Iss: 5, pp 430-439
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TLDR
The muscular stiffness and continual EMG activity were abolished by curare but persisted during spinal anesthesia and after peripheral nerve blocks, suggesting that the syndrome was due to isolated, spontaneous, peripheral nerve hyperactivity.
Abstract
THE PERIPHERAL nerve disorders, unlike central nervous system and muscle diseases, have not been widely recognized as causes of generalized muscular stiffness. Isaacs,1,2in 1961 and 1967, reported three patients with an entity of generalized muscular stiffness, fasciculations, continual electromyographic (EMG) activity at rest and depressed deep tendon reflexes. The muscular stiffness and continual EMG activity were abolished by curare but persisted during spinal anesthesia and after peripheral nerve blocks, suggesting that the syndrome was due to isolated, spontaneous, peripheral nerve hyperactivity. Isaacs also discovered that diphenylhydantoin (DPH) induced a substantial and sustained decrease in the muscular stiffness. Similar cases were reported by Mertens and Zschocke3and by Levy et al,4both groups confirming the effects of spinal anesthesia and curare. Mertens and Zschocke3also found carbamazepine as effective as DPH in treatment. Sig wald et al,5Gardner-Medwin and Walton,6and Hughes and

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Ectopic generation of impulses and cross-talk in spinal nerve roots of “dystrophic” mice

TL;DR: In “dystrophic” mice, many spinal root axons are bare and closely apposed to one another in midroot, and impulses arise in the spinalRoot axons of dystrophic mice both spontaneously and as a result of cross‐talk between single fibers.
Journal ArticleDOI

Ephaptic transmission between single nerve fibres in the spinal nerve roots of dystrophic mice.

TL;DR: It is concluded that in at least some cases the direction of ephaptic transmission is from bare axon to myelinated axon, and that there may be multiple sites of spontaneous ectopic excitation in single dystrophic mouse spinal root axons.
Journal ArticleDOI

Hemifacial spasm and the facial nucleus

TL;DR: Spontaneous and associated hyperkinetic facial movements and contracture which follow injury to the seventh cranial nerve or arise without known previous injury (cryptogenic hemifacial spasm) are pathological motor phenomena not found in the distribution of other cranial or somatic motor nerves.
Journal ArticleDOI

Hereditary myokymia and periodic ataxia

TL;DR: The myokymia described here is of interest not only because of its genetic association with a movement disorder, but also because the muscle findings support a peripheral basis for the muscle movements.
Journal ArticleDOI

Hyperexcitability of motor and sensory neurons in neuromyotonia.

TL;DR: Two members of a family with a neuropathy resembling Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth disease were unable to relax their muscles after voluntary contraction, and muscle spasm often outlasted voluntary contraction by 30 seconds or more before subsiding into myokymia and fasciculations.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Effects of denervation on fasciculations in human muscle; relation of fibrillations to fasciculations.

TL;DR: In this paper, confirmatory evidence for the site of origin of fasciculations was sought, which demonstrated that continued fasciculation during pharmacologic block of the appropriate peripheral nerves or nerve roots and of the alteration of the frequency of foci by drugs acting at the myoneural junction.
Journal ArticleDOI

A clinical and neurophysiological study of a mixed type of myotonia and sporadic tetany

TL;DR: A male patient of 46 years, who, after an infective disorder in 1946, showed fasciculation and painful cramps in the legs ceasing spontaneously in eight months, ten years later, without obvious cause, fasciculations reappeared as well as painful cramping in the face and upper limbs.
Journal ArticleDOI

On the Question of acquired Myotonia.

TL;DR: Hochgradige histologische Veränderungen der quergestreiften Muskulatur und das völlige Sistieren von Myotonie and Myokymie unter Lumbalanästhesie and Grenzstrangausschaltung bieten Unterlagen f for hypothetische Betrachtungen über Topik and Pathogenese.
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The pharmacology of 2-aziridinyl ethanol

TL;DR: The pharmacology of 2-aziridinyl ethanol (2-AE) was examined in cats and in rats and found that it is very low in anticholinesterase activity and has no effect on the electroencephalogram and insignificant effects on the cardiovascular system.
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