Patients with ephedrone parkinsonism (EP) show a complex, rapidly progressive, irreversible, and levodopa non-responsive parkinsonian and dystonic syndrome due to manganese intoxication. Eye movements may help to differentiate parkinsonian syndromes providing insights into which brain networks are affected in the underlying disease, but they have never been systematically studied in EP. Horizontal and vertical eye movements were recorded in 28 EP and compared to 21 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, and 27 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects using standardized oculomotor tasks with infrared videooculography. EP patients showed slow and hypometric horizontal saccades, an increased occurrence of square wave jerks, long latencies of vertical antisaccades, a high error rate in the horizontal antisaccade task, and made more errors than controls when pro- and antisaccades were mixed. Based on oculomotor performance, a direct differentiation between EP and PD was possible only by the velocity of horizontal saccades. All remaining metrics were similar between both patient groups. EP patients present extensive oculomotor disturbances probably due to manganese-induced damage to the basal ganglia, reflecting their role in oculomotor system.

• MeSH
• bazální ganglia patofyziologie   MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mangan toxicita   MeSH
• mozek patofyziologie   MeSH
• parkinsonské poruchy chemicky indukované   patofyziologie   MeSH
• pohyby očí fyziologie   MeSH
• poruchy spojené s užíváním psychoaktivních látek patofyziologie   MeSH
• propiofenony škodlivé účinky   MeSH
• sakadické oční pohyby fyziologie   MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• ženské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH

A distinctive alteration of speech has been reported in patients suffering from ephedrone-induced parkinsonism. However, an objective assessment of dysarthria has not been performed in ephedrone users. We studied 28 young Caucasian men from Georgia with a previous history of ephedrone abuse and compared them to 25 age-matched healthy controls. Speech examination, brain MRI, and NNIPPS-Parkinson plus scale were performed in all patients. The accurate differential diagnosis of dysarthria subtypes was based on the quantitative acoustic analyses of 15 speech dimensions. We revealed a distinct variant of mixed dysarthria with a combination of hyperkinetic and hypokinetic components representing the altered motor programming of dystonia and bradykinesia in ephedrone-induced parkinsonism. According to acoustic analyses, all patients presented at least one affected speech dimension, whereas dysarthria was moderate in 43% and severe in 36% of patients. Further findings indicated relationships between motor subscores of dystonia and bradykinesia and speech components of loudness (r = -0.54, p < 0.01), articulation (r = 0.40, p < 0.05), and timing (r = -0.53, p < 0.01). In ephedrone-induced parkinsonism a prominent mixed hyperkinetic-hypokinetic dysarthria occurs that appears related to marked dystonia and bradykinesia and probably reflects manganese induced toxic and neurodegenerative damage to the globus pallidus internus and substantia nigra.

• MeSH
• akustika MeSH
• analýza rozptylu MeSH
• antiparkinsonika terapeutické užití   MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• dysartrie etiologie   MeSH
• dystonie etiologie   MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• magnetická rezonanční tomografie MeSH
• parkinsonské poruchy farmakoterapie   etiologie   MeSH
• poruchy spojené s užíváním psychoaktivních látek komplikace   MeSH
• propiofenony škodlivé účinky   MeSH
• statistika jako téma MeSH
• stupeň závažnosti nemoci MeSH
• záznam o duševním stavu MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH