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Tourette's Syndrome - Tourette's Syndrome Symptom, Cause, Treatment
People with Tourette's have normal life expectancy and intelligence. Notable individuals with Tourette syndrome are found across many professions and in all walks of life. The severity of the tics decreases for most children as they pass through adolescence, and extreme Tourette's in adulthood is a rarity.
Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive, stereotyped, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics. The disorder is named for Dr. Georges Gilles de la Tourette, the pioneering French neurologist who in 1885 first described the condition in an 86-year-old French noblewoman.
is a genetic condition, that's either inherited (passed on from parent to child) or happens during development in the womb. Doctors and scientists don't know the exact cause of TS, but some research suggests that it occurs when there's a problem with how nerves communicate in the brain. Neurotransmitters - chemicals in the brain that carry nerve signals from cell to cell - may play a role in TS. Tourette syndrome is not contagious.
The main symptoms of TS are motor tics (sudden, apparently uncontrollable movements like exaggerated blinking of the eyes) or vocal tics (such as when a person repeatedly clears his or her throat).
Although the cause of TS is unknown, current research points to abnormalities in certain brain regions (including the basal ganglia, frontal lobes, and cortex), the circuits that interconnect these regions, and the neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine) responsible for communication among nerve cells.
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