Vibro-tactile stimulation of the neck induces head righting in people with cervical dystonia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Cervical dystonia (CD) is characterized by involuntary neck muscle spasms that lead to abnormal head movements or postures. It is associated with somatosensory (tactile and proprioceptive) dysfunction. Here we tested whether vibro-tactile stimulation (VTS) of the cervical muscles constitutes a non-invasive form of neuromodulation of the somatosensory system that can provide temporary symptom relief for people with CD. MATERIAL AND METHOD: In a multi-centre study, 67 CD patients (44 female) received VTS to sternocleidomastoid and/or trapezius muscles for up to 45 min under 9 different stimulation conditions. Retention was assessed 1, 5 and 20 min past VTS. Head angles and neck muscle EMG were recorded. The primary outcome measure was a head angle index (HAI), a composite measure reflecting the head deviation across the three axes of the head. RESULTS: After identifying the most effective VTS condition for each participant, analysis showed that 85 % (57/67) of participants experienced an improvement in HAI of at least 10 % during the application of VTS. HAI improved by 50 % or higher in 26/67 of participants. For those responding to VTS, the effects tended to decay within 20 min. For the different CD phenotypes several stimulation sites could induce similarly large relative improvements in head posture. CONCLUSION: The study provides first systematic evidence that cervical VTS can induce fast-acting improvements in abnormal head posture in patients with CD. It demonstrates that a stimulation of somatosensory afferent networks modulates the innervation of dystonic muscles. It highlights the potential of cervical VTS as an adjuvant, non-invasive neuromodulation treatment in CD.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".