@article{OdorferHomolaReichetal.2019,
  author    = {Odorfer, Thorsten M. and Homola, Gy{\"o}rgy A. and Reich, Martin M. and Volkmann, Jens and Zeller, Daniel},
  title     = {Increased finger-tapping related cerebellar activation in cervical dystonia, enhanced by transcranial stimulation: an indicator of compensation?},
  series = {Frontiers in Neurology},
  volume    = {10},
  journal   = {Frontiers in Neurology},
  number    = {231},
  issn      = {1664-2295},
  doi       = {10.3389/fneur.2019.00231},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-196249},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Background: Cervical dystonia is a movement disorder causing abnormal postures and movements of the head. While the exact pathophysiology of cervical dystonia has not yet been fully elucidated, a growing body of evidence points to the cerebellum as an important node. Methods: Here, we examined the impact of cerebellar interference by transcranial magnetic stimulation on finger-tapping related brain activation and neurophysiological measures of cortical excitability and inhibition in cervical dystonia and controls. Bilateral continuous theta-burst stimulation was used to modulate cerebellar cortical excitability in 16 patients and matched healthy controls. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging arm, data were acquired during simple finger tapping before and after cerebellar stimulation. In a neurophysiological arm, assessment comprised motor-evoked potentials amplitude and cortical silent period duration. Theta-burst stimulation over the dorsal premotor cortex and sham stimulation (neurophysiological arm only) served as control conditions. Results: At baseline, finger tapping was associated with increased activation in the ipsilateral cerebellum in patients compared to controls. Following cerebellar theta-burst stimulation, this pattern was even more pronounced, along with an additional movement-related activation in the contralateral somatosensory region and angular gyrus. Baseline motor-evoked potential amplitudes were higher and cortical silent period duration shorter in patients compared to controls. After cerebellar theta-burst stimulation, cortical silent period duration increased significantly in dystonia patients. Conclusion: We conclude that in cervical dystonia, finger movements—though clinically non-dystonic—are associated with increased activation of the lateral cerebellum, possibly pointing to general motor disorganization, which remains subclinical in most body regions. Enhancement of this activation together with an increase of silent period duration by cerebellar continuous theta-burst stimulation may indicate predominant disinhibitory effects on Purkinje cells, eventually resulting in an inhibition of cerebello-thalamocortical circuits.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Homola2011,
  author    = {Homola, Gy{\"o}rgy {\´A}d{\´a}m},
  title     = {Functional and Microstructural MRI of the Human Brain Revealing a Cerebral Network Processing the Age of Faces},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-56740},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t W{\"u}rzburg},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {Although age is one of the most salient and fundamental aspects of human faces, its processing in the brain has not yet been studied by any neuroimaging experiment. Automatic assessment of temporal changes across faces is a prerequisite to identifying persons over their life-span, and age per se is of biological and social relevance. Using a combination of evocative face morphs controlled for global optical flow and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we segregate two areas that process changes of facial age in both hemispheres. These areas extend beyond the previously established face-sensitive network and are centered on the posterior inferior temporal sulcus (pITS) and the posterior angular gyrus (pANG), an evolutionarily new formation of the human brain. Using probabilistic tractography and by calculating spatial cross-correlations as well as creating minimum intersection maps between activation and connectivity patterns we demonstrate a hitherto unrecognized link between structure and function in the human brain on the basis of cognitive age processing. According to our results, implicit age processing involves the inferior temporal sulci and is, at the same time, closely tied to quantity decoding by the presumed neural systems devoted to magnitudes in the human parietal lobes. The ventral portion of Wernicke's largely forgotten perpendicular association fasciculus is shown not only to interconnect these two areas but to relate to their activations, i.e. to transmit age-relevant information. In particular, post-hoc age-rating competence is shown to be associated with high response levels in the left angular gyrus. Cortical activation patterns related to changes of facial age differ from those previously elicited by other fixed as well as changeable face aspects such as gender (used for comparison), ethnicity and identity as well as eye gaze or facial expressions. We argue that this may be due to the fact that individual changes of facial age occur ontogenetically, unlike the instant changes of gaze direction or expressive content in faces that can be "mirrored" and require constant cognitive monitoring to follow. Discussing the ample evidence for distinct representations of quantitative age as opposed to categorical gender varied over continuous androgyny levels, we suggest that particular face-sensitive regions interact with additional object-unselective quantification modules to obtain individual estimates of facial age.},
  subject      = {Gesicht},
  language  = {en}
}