Probable Causes

At present there is only one leading clinical investigator world-wide who seeks to improve our understanding of the causes and cures for MdDS. Her name is Dr Yoon-Hee Cha and she is based in America. In April 2012 she presented an abstract of her current findings at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. To view the abstract please click on the link at the bottom, alternatively below are her findings in laymen’s terms.

 Completed Research

Functional Imaging with PET and fMRI

The PET and fMRI studies on 20 patients with motion triggered MdDS, 12 patients with spontaneous MdDS, and 20 controls have been completed. Briefly, both patients with motion triggered MdDS and spontaneous MdDS have hypermetabolism in a deep area of the brain called the entorhinal cortex. This is the major processing centre for spatial information entering into the hippocampus, the brain area that stores spatial information. Moreover, patients with MdDS have less connectivity between this area and the prefrontal cortex, which normally serves to control the activity of the entorhinal cortex. However, patients with MdDS have more connectivity to other parts of the brain that receive spatial information. Thus, it seems that the fundamental problem in MdDS is that there is greater connectivity between areas that process and store spatial information while there is less connectivity between these areas and areas that regulate the storage areas.