Internal Medicine
Online ISSN : 1349-7235
Print ISSN : 0918-2918
ISSN-L : 0918-2918
Pain-Related and Electrically Stimulated Somatosensory Evoked Potentials in Patients with Machado-Joseph Disease and Multiple System Atrophy
Masahiko YAMAMOTOTeruhiko KACHIGen SOBUE
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1997 Volume 36 Issue 8 Pages 550-555

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Abstract

We investigated the ascending somatosensory pathway for pain in 8 patients with Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) and multiple system atrophy (MSA). Pain-related somatosensory evoked potentials (pain SEPs) by CO2 laser stimulation were examined together with conventional electrically stimulated somatosensory evoked potentials (electric SEPs). The sporadic cerebellar ataxia of patients with MSA showed a normal pattern of pain SEPs as well as electric SEPs. However, pain and electric SEPs were abnormal for the central and/or peripheral ascending pathway in MJD. These abnormalities of pain and electric SEPs in MJD were not related to the clinical severity of sensory impairment, but they indicate that MJD presents a subclinical abnormality for the ascending somatosensory pathways not only for vibratory sense but also for pain sense.
(Internal Medicine 36: 550-555, 1997)

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© The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine
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