Challenges of making music: what causes musician's dystonia?

December
1st

Challenges of making music: what causes musician's dystonia?

JAMA Neurol. 2013 Nov;70(11):1456-9. doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2013.3931.

Musician’s dystonia, a task-specific movement disorder, affects 1% to 2% of professional musicians and is thought to be environmentally acquired, related to years of practice.1,2 Indeed, professional musicians will have spent more than 10 000 hours on the instrument by the age of 20 years.3 Recently, a clustering of different types of dystonia was reported in the families of patients with musician’s dystonia, suggesting also a genetic contribution to the disease.4 However, the underlying molecular genetic factors are currently unknown. We here investigated in a case-control design whether intensive practice or other environmental factors are associated with musician’s dystonia in combination with genetic susceptibility.

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