Stephen Jackson

University of Nottingham | Notts · School of Psychology

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder characterised by vocal and motor tics. It is associated with cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit [CSTC] dysfunction and hyper-excitability of cortical motor regions. TS follows a developmental time course, in which tics often become increasingly more controlled during adolescence. Importantl...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder characterised by vocal and motor tics and is associated with cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit [CSTC] dysfunction and hyper-excitability of cortical limbic and motor regions, which are thought to lead to the occurrence of tics. Importantly, individuals with TS often report that their tics...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder characterized by vocal and motor tics. TS is associated with impairments in behavioral inhibition, dysfunc- tional signaling of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, and alterations in the balance of excitatory and inhibitory influences within brain networks implicated in motor learning and the sele...

Children with neurological disorders may follow unique developmental trajectories whereby they undergo compensatory neuroplastic changes in brain structure and function that help them gain control over their symptoms. We used behavioral and brain imaging techniques to investigate this conjecture in children with Tourette syndrome (TS). Using a beha...

Background: Rhythmic median nerve stimulation (MNS) at 10Hz has been shown to cause a substantial reduction in tic frequency in individuals with Tourette Syndrome. The mechanism of action is currently unknown, but is hypothesised to involve entrainment of oscillations within the sensorimotor cortex. Objective: We used functional magnetic resonance...

Tourette syndrome (TS) and chronic tic disorder (CTD) are neurological disorders of childhood onset characterized by the occurrence of tics; repetitive, purposeless, movements or vocalizations of short duration which can occur many times throughout a day. Currently, effective treatment for tic disorders is an area of considerable unmet clinical nee...

Tourette syndrome (TS) and chronic tic disorder (CTD) are neurological disorders of childhood onset characterised by the occurrence of tics; repetitive, purposeless, movements or vocalisations of short duration which can occur many times throughout a day. Currently, effective treatment for tic disorders is an area of considerable unmet clinical nee...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder of childhood onset characterised by the occurrence of vocal and motor tics. The pathophysiology of TS has been linked to dysfunction within cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical (CSTC) brain circuits and alterations in gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) signalling within the striatum. Recently, it has bee...

The ability of non-invasive brain stimulation to induce neuroplasticity and cause long-lasting functional changes is of considerable interest for the reversal of chronic pain and disability. Stimulation of the primary motor cortex (M1) has provided some of the most encouraging after-effects for therapeutic purposes, but little is known about its un...

Entrainment of brain oscillations can be achieved using rhythmic non-invasive brain stimulation, and stimulation of the motor cortex at a frequency associated with sensorimotor inhibition can impair motor responses. Despite the potential for therapeutic application, these techniques do not lend themselves to use outside of a clinical setting. Here,...

The ability of non-invasive brain stimulation to induce neuroplasticity and cause long-lasting functional changes is of considerable interest for the reversal of disability and chronic neurological diseases. Stimulation of the primary motor cortex (M1) has provided some of the most encouraging after-effects for therapeutic purposes, but little is k...

Tics in Tourette syndrome are associated with changes in the synchrony of movement-related brain oscillations within the sensorimotor cortex, which are associated with cortical hyperexcitability. Non-invasive brain stimulation can be used to modulate excitability of the motor cortex and techniques such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulatio...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder of childhood onset characterized by the occurrence of vocal and motor tics; however, there is mounting evidence to indicate that TS may be associated with the altered processing of somatosensory information, including alterations in both interoceptive and exteroceptive awareness. Importantly, the ma...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterised by tics, which are stereotyped movements and/or vocalisations. Tics often cause difficulties in daily life and many with TS express a desire to reduce and/or gain control over them. No singular effective treatment exists for TS, and while pharmacological and behavioural interven...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by the occurrence of motor and vocal tics. TS is associated with cortical–striatal–thalamic–cortical circuit dysfunction and hyper‐excitability of cortical limbic and motor regions that lead to the occurrence of tics. Importantly, individuals with TS often report that their tics...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder of childhood onset that is characterized by the occurrence of motor and vocal tics. TS is associated with cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit [CSTC] dysfunction and hyper-excitability of cortical limbic and motor regions that are thought to lead to the occurrence of tics. Individuals with TS...

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate are the primary neurotransmitters responsible for modulating excitatory and inhibitory signalling within the human brain. Dysfunctional GABAergic and glutamatergic signalling has been identified as a key factor in a range of neuropsychiatric conditions; hence measurement and modulation of these neurometa...

The ability to induce neuroplasticity with non-invasive brain stimulation techniques offers a unique opportunity to examine the human brain systems involved in pain modulation. In experimental and clinical settings, the primary motor cortex (M1) is commonly targeted to alleviate pain, but its mechanism of action remains unclear. Using dynamic causa...

Entrainment of brain oscillations can be achieved using rhythmic non-invasive brain stimulation, and stimulation of the motor cortex at a frequency associated with sensorimotor inhibition can impair motor responses. Despite the potential therapeutic applications, these techniques do not lend themselves to use outside a clinical setting. Here, the a...

Background Patients with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS) or chronic tic disorders frequently experience premonitory urges prior to tics. The ‘Premonitory Urges for Tic Disorders Scale’ (PUTS) is commonly used in order to assess urge severity in patients with tics. Several studies suggest that the PUTS might measure more than one dimension of u...

Background: Patients with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS) or chronic tic disorders frequently experience premonitory urges prior to tics. The “Premonitory Urges for Tic Disorders Scale” (PUTS) is commonly used in order to assess urge severity in patients with tics. Several studies suggest that the PUTS might measure more than one dimension of...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by the occurrence of vocal and motor tics. Tics are involuntary, repetitive movements and vocalizations that occur in bouts, typically many times in a single day, and are often preceded by a strong urge-to-tic—referred to as a premonitory urge (PU). TS is associated with the follow...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder of childhood onset that is characterised by the occurrence of motor and vocal tics. TS is associated with cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit [CSTC] dysfunction and hyper-excitability of cortical limbic and motor regions that are thought to lead to the occurrence of tics. Importantly, indivi...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a hyperkinetic movement disorder characterised by the occurrence of chronic motor and vocal tics, and is associated with alterations in the balance of excitatory and inhibitory signalling within key brain networks; in particular the cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical (CSTC) brain circuits that are implicated in movement s...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be used to probe for the location of cortical somatomotor representations in humans. These somatomotor representations are dynamic and are perturbed following motor training, systematic intervention, and in disease. Evidence suggests that these representations are maintained by the inhibitory neurotransmi...

Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques delivered to cortical motor areas have been shown previously to: modulate cortical motor excitability; entrain brain oscillations; and influence motor behavior; and have therefore attracted considerable interest as potential therapeutic approaches targeted for the treatment of movement disorders. However, t...

This scientific commentary refers to ‘Impaired automatic but intact volitional inhibition in primary tic disorders’, by Rawji etal. (doi:10.1093/brain/awaa024).

Previous observations of improvements in cognition in typically developing children following moderate to vigorous exercise (e.g. Budde, Voelcker-Rehage, Pietrabyk-Kendziorra, Ribeiro, and Tidow, 2008; Hillman et al., 2009) have led to increased interest in the potential benefits of exercise for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, involving...

Stimulating the primary motor cortex (M1) using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) causes unique multisensory experience such as the targeted muscle activity, afferent/reafferent sensory feedback, tactile sensation over the scalp and "click" sound. Although the human M1 has been intensively investigated using TMS, the experience of the M1 stim...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder of childhood onset that is characterised by the occurrence of motor and vocal tics. TS is associated with cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit [CSTC] dysfunction and hyper-excitability of cortical limbic and motor regions that are thought to lead to the occurrence of tics. Individuals with TS...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a childhood-onset neurological disorder characterized by motor and vocal tics and premonitory sensory phenomena. Functional and ligand-tracing neuroimaging studies and studies in animals have shown that tic genesis and execution involve a complex interaction between frontal, striatal and cerebellar areas of the brain. Furt...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by the occurrence of vocal and motor tics. Tics are involuntary, repetitive movements and vocalizations that occur in bouts, typically many times in a single day, and are often preceded by a strong urge-to-tic—referred to as a premonitory urge (PU). TS is associated with the follow...

Stimulating the primary motor cortex (M1) using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) causes unique multisensory experience such as the targeted muscle activity, afferent/reafferent sensory feedback, tactile sensation over the scalp and click sound. Although the human M1 has been intensively investigated using TMS, the experience of the M1 stimul...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder of childhood onset that is characterised by the occurrence of motor and vocal tics. TS is associated with cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit [CSTC] dysfunction and hyper-excitability of cortical limbic and motor regions that are thought to lead to the occurrence of tics. Importantly, indivi...

Tourette syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by motor and phonic tics. For some, tics can be managed using medication and/or forms of behavioural therapy; however, adverse side effects and access to specialist resources can be barriers to treatment. In this sham-controlled brain stimulation study, we investigated the effects of...

Current theories of motor control emphasize how the brain may use internal models of the body to ensure accurate planning and control of movements. One such internal model-a forward model-is thought to generate an estimate of the next motor state and/or the sensory consequences of an upcoming movement, thereby allowing movement errors to be monitor...

Current theories of motor control emphasize how the brain may use internal models of the body to ensure accurate planning and control of movements. One such internal model—a forward model—is thought to generate an estimate of the next motor state and/or the sensory consequences of an upcoming movement, thereby allowing movement errors to be monitor...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by repetitive and intermittent motor and vocal tics. TS is thought to reflect fronto-striatal dysfunction and the aetiology of the disorder has been linked to widespread alterations in the functional and structural integrity of the brain. The aim of this study was to assess white...

Contagious yawning [CY], in which yawning is triggered involuntarily when we observe another person yawn, is a common form of echophenomena -- the automatic imitation of another’s words (echolalia) or actions (echopraxia) [1]. The neural basis for echophenomena is unknown, however it has been proposed that it is linked to disinhibition of the human...

Functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy (fMRS) has been used to assess the dynamic metabolic responses of the brain to a physiological stimulus non-invasively. However, only limited information on the dynamic functional response of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, is available. We aimed to measure...

Imbalances in glutamatergic (excitatory) and GABA (inhibitory) signalling within key brain networks are thought to underlie many brain and mental health disorders, and for this reason there is considerable interest in investigating how individual variability in localised concentrations of these molecules relate to brain disorders. Magnetic resonanc...

The ‘two visual systems’ account proposed by Milner and Goodale (1992) argued that visual perception and the visual control of action depend upon functionally distinct and anatomically separable brain systems: a ventral stream of visual processing that mediates visual perception (object identification and recognition) and a dorsal stream of visual...

The ‘two visual systems’ account proposed by Milner and Goodale (1992) argued that visual perception and the visual control of action depend upon functionally distinct and anatomically separable brain systems: a ventral stream of visual processing that mediates visual perception (object identification and recognition) and a dorsal stream of visual...

Automatic imitation of other people’s actions is termed echophenomena (EP). EP is a prominent feature in several neurological and psychiatric conditions where patients are not able to suppress imitative behaviour of others. EPs also occur in neurologically healthy individuals (Platek et al., 2005). As an example, observing a yawn can produce echoph...

Poster presentation linked to: Dyke, K., Kim, S., Jackson, G. M., & Jackson, S. R. (2016). Intra-subject consistency and reliability of response following 2 mA transcranial direct current stimulation. Brain stimulation, 9(6), 819-825.

Synopsis To investigate changes in GABA levels in human motor cortex in response to the hand clenching task, the macromolecule-corrected MEGA-sLASER sequence was used in functional MRS (fMRS) experiments conducted at 7T. During motor activation, the total creatine (tCr) signal remained stable, while a signicant transient increase in GABA/tCr (20%±1...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental condition characterised by chronic motor and vocal tics affecting up to 1% of school-age children and young people and is associated with significant distress and psychosocial impairment. Objective: To conduct a systematic review of the benefits and risks of pharmacological, behavioural and physical in...

Background: A common control condition for transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies is to apply stimulation at the vertex. An assumption of vertex stimulation is that it has relatively little influence on-going brain processes involved in most experimental tasks, however there has been little attempt to measure neural changes linked to verte...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder characterised by vocal and motor tics. TS is associated with impairments in behavioural inhibition, with dysfunctional signalling of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, and with alterations in the balance of excitatory and inhibitory influences within brain networks implicated in motor learning an...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a developmental neurological disorder characterised by vocal and motor tics [1] and associated with cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuit dysfunction [2,3], hyper-excitability within cortical motor areas [4] and altered intra-cortical inhibition [4-7]. TS often follows a developmental timecourse in which tics become...

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that alters cortical excitability in a polarity specific manner and has been shown to influence learning and memory. tDCS may have both on-line and after-effects on learning and memory, and the latter are thought to be based upon tDCS-induced alterations in...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by motor and vocal tics. Tics are repetitive and uncontrolled behaviours that have been associated with basal ganglia dysfunction. We investigated saccadic eye movements in a group of young people with TS but without co-morbid ADHD. Participants performed two tasks. One required...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by the occurrence of motor and vocal tics. TS has been linked to the impaired operation of cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical circuits that give rise to hyper-excitability of cortical motor areas, which may be exacerbated by dysfunctional intra-cortical inhibitory mechanisms. Th...

Unlabelled: Acupuncture is a therapeutic treatment that is defined as the insertion of needles into the body at specific points (ie, acupoints). Advances in functional neuroimaging have made it possible to study brain responses to acupuncture; however, previous studies have mainly concentrated on acupoint specificity. We wanted to focus on the fun...

Patients with alien hand syndrome (AHS) experience making apparently deliberate and purposeful movements with their hand against their will. However, the mechanisms contributing to these involuntary actions remain poorly understood. Here, we describe two experimental investigations in a patient with corticobasal syndrome (CBS) with alien hand behav...

Tourette syndrome [TS] is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by chronic vocal and motor tics. TS has been associated with dysfunctional cognitive (inhibitory) control of behaviour, however the evidence for this, beyond the occurrence of tics, is scant. Furthermore, in recent studies of uncomplicated TS, it has been shown that adolescents w...

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neuro-developmental disorder characterized by the occurrence of motor and vocal tics: involuntary, repetitive, stereotyped behaviours that occur with a limited duration, often typically many times in a single day. Previous studies suggest that children and adolescents with TS may undergo compensatory, neuroplastic change...

Previous research demonstrates that our apparent mental flexibility depends largely on the strength of our prior intention; changing our intention in advance enables a smooth transition from one task to another (e.g., Astle DE, Jackson GM, Swainson R. J Cogn Neurosci 20: 255-267, 2008; Duncan J, Emslie H, Williams P, Johnson R, Freer C. Cogn Psycho...

Several common neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g., obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome (TS), autistic spectrum disorder) are associated with unpleasant bodily sensations that are perceived as an urge for action. Similarly, many of our everyday behaviors are also characterized by bodily sensations that we experience as urges for action. W...

The past decade has seen increasing interest within the cognitive neuroscience community in understanding the psychological processes involved in representing the body, and in learning how these processes may be implemented within the brain. This special issue of Cognitive Neuroscience presents six new empirical papers that contribute to this rapid...

In our article we considered the nature and the functional anatomy of "urges-for-action," both in the context of everyday behaviors such as yawning, swallowing, and micturition, and in relation to clinical disorders in which the urge-for-action is considered pathological (e.g., Tourette syndrome), and we argued for a key role for the insular and ci...

The intention to execute a movement can modulate our perception of sensory events; however, theoretical accounts of these effects, and also empirical data, are often contradictory. We investigated how perception of a somatosensory stimulus differed according to whether it was delivered to a limb being prepared for movement or to a nonmoving limb. O...

The intention to execute a movement can modulate our perception of sensory events, and this modulation is observed ahead of both ocular and upper limb movements. However, theoretical accounts of these effects, and also the empirical data, are often contradictory. Accounts of "active touch", and the premotor theory of attention, have emphasized how...

Computational theories of motor control propose that the brain uses 'forward' models of the body to ensure accurate control of movements. Forward 'dynamic' models are thought to generate an estimate of the next motor state for an upcoming movement: thereby providing a dynamic representation of the current postural configuration of the body that can...

Abstract The perception-action model (PAM) provides a misleading account of the core function of the dorsal stream: which is the integration of sensory signals to create dynamic representations of corporeal and extrapersonal space. Recent evidence suggests that the parietal-occipital cortex plays a key role in integrating multimodal spatial signals...

Temporal and spatial attentional deficits in dyslexia were investigated using a lateralized visual temporal order judgment (TOJ) paradigm that allowed both sensitivity to temporal order and spatial attentional bias to be measured. Findings indicate that adult participants with a positive screen for dyslexia were significantly less sensitive to the...

Optic ataxia (OA) is generally thought of as a disorder of visually guided reaching movements that cannot be explained by any simple deficit in visual or motor processing. In this paper we offer a new perspective on optic ataxia; we argue that the popular characterisation of this disorder is misleading and is unrepresentative of the pattern of reac...

Voluntary eye movements and covert shifts of visual attention activate the same brain regions. Specifically, the intraparietal sulcus and the frontal eye fields (FEF) appear to be involved both with generating voluntary saccades as well with attending to a peripheral spatial location. Furthermore, these regions appear to be required by both tasks--...

Simultanagnosia (resulting from occipito-parietal damage) is a profound visual deficit, which impairs the ability to perceive multiple items in a visual display, while preserving the ability to recognise single objects. Here we demonstrate in a patient presenting with Balint's syndrome that this deficit may result from an extreme form of competitio...

Evidence from experiments designed to elicit the phenomenon of perisaccadic mislocalization of briefly presented probe stimuli suggests that mechanisms implicated in the planning of a saccade are also implicated in the means by which spatial constancy is maintained across saccades. We postulated that impairments of visual attention observed in dysl...

AI is unable to make eye-movements and has a deficit of reflexive attention. Here, we demonstrate that despite these deficits AI exhibits inhibition of return (IOR) for peripherally cued objects and locations. These data suggest that an intact oculomotor system is not required for the generation of either object-based or location-based IOR and are...

Many motor learning experiments involve subjects performing a task while experiencing external force perturbations. However, it is difficult to transfer these tasks to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, and much of the technology that currently exists to facilitate this is expensive to produce and difficult to use. Here, we repor...

Within the medial frontal cortex, the supplementary eye field (SEF), supplementary motor area (SMA), and pre-SMA have been implicated in the control of voluntary action, especially during motor sequences or tasks involving rapid choices between competing response plans. However, the precise roles of these areas remain controversial. Here, we study...

Patients with hemispatial neglect show deficits in size perception. We investigated how this effect would be modulated by a change in object orientation. Seven right-hemisphere-lesioned patients, with and without neglect, and a control group, were asked to indicate which one of two bilaterally presented lines was longer, shorter or the same. Depend...

The precise function of the supplementary eye field (SEF) is poorly understood. Although electrophysiological and functional imaging studies are important for demonstrating when SEF neurones are active, lesion studies are critical to establish the functions for which the SEF is essential. Here we report a series of investigations performed on an ex...

When a participant moves a hand-held target in complete darkness after an afterimage of that target has been obtained, an illusory increase (with movements away from the participant) or decrease (with movements towards the participant) in the apparent size of the afterimage is reported (the Taylor illusion, reported first in Taylor, J Exp Psychol 2...

A recent study has shown that illusory inversion of temporal order can be induced by the 'intentional binding' of an action with its consequence, and that this is associated with increased activation in a brain area implicated in conflict monitoring.

Ensuring that behavior remains appropriate over time requires dynamic, flexible control. We used the task-switching procedure to investigate the mechanisms whereby advance information is used to control behavior under conditions of frequently changing task-rules. The color of target stimuli signaled which task-set (or behavioral 'rule') was require...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a popular technique that can be used to investigate the functional role of specific cortical areas with reference to a particular behavioural task. Single-cell recording studies performed in non-human primates have demonstrated that a region of the parietal lobe known as the lateral intraparietal area is s...

We studied a patient (J.J.) with bilateral damage to those regions of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) thought to be involved in prism adaptation. We demonstrated, for the first time in a parietal patient, that J.J. was unable to adapt to the visual perturbation induced by the optical prisms with either hand within four times the number of trial...

When presented with two objects patients with simultanagnosia show a marked impairment at naming both items. This has led many authors to conclude that the second item is not being processed (e.g., Robinson, 2003). However, this deficit may instead reflect a deficit with explicit, or conscious report. We investigated this issue using a semantic pri...

In this special issue of Neuropsychologia leading experts in the field discuss controversies and advances in the role of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in visuomotor control. The papers are wide-ranging in their scope, covering monkey physiology and anatomy, functional imaging in humans and monkeys as well as transcranial magnetic stimulation...

Recent evidence has implicated posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in adaptation to optical displacing prisms. It has been suggested that PPC contributes to the strategic component of prism adaptation necessary for perceptual realignment (true adaptation). It has also been suggested, however, that the part of PPC responsible for corrections to ongoing...

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is thought to integrate different kinds of sensory information (e.g., visual, auditory, somatosensory) to produce multiple representations of space that are each associated with different types or combinations of action; such as saccadic eye movements and reaching or grasping movements of the upper limb. Lesion s...