Figure 4.

Contributions of human and animal studies. Both human and animal studies are required to provide a complete view of the pathogenesis of dystonia. Clinical observations and results from human studies can be used to guide experimental questions and hypotheses when designing animal studies (A and B). On the other hand, findings from animal studies can be applied in human research to validate or refute conceptual models as well as to aid in the development of more targeted interventions (A and B). To avoid potential problems related to cross-species translation of results, we propose an iterative approach, in which answers to experimental questions obtained from simple models are verified in more advanced animal models, and subsequently validated in human studies (B). For example, results from rodents or fruit fly studies can be verified first in nonhuman primates before validation in humans. Similarly, findings from cell culture models can be tested in rodents before application to human studies.