Pathogenesis of movement disorders: basic neuroanatomy and pathophysiology

Movement disorders are conditions affecting the ability to produce and control voluntary as well as involuntary movements and comprise a large group of diseases with a wide range of different etiologies and very diverse clinical presentations. For many of the conditions, the pathophysiology remains unclear or at least partially unknown. Some of the more common and “classical” movement disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease, arise from disturbances of the basal ganglia. Hence, movement disorders are sometimes also referred to as basal ganglia disorders.