Science+report

**Introduction**
The disorder I'm doing is Tourettes Syndrome. Tourettes Syndrome is when someone blurts something out randomly or unexpectedly and flicks there head to the side out of the blue. The disorder is named for Dr. Georges Gilles de la Tourette, the french doctor who in 1885 first described the condition in an 86-year-old French girl. The symptoms of TS are almost always noticed first in the beginning of your life, between the ages of 7 and 10 years old. Males are affected about 3 to 4 times more often than females. Although TS can be a chronic condition with symptoms lasting a lifetime, most people with the condition, experience their worst symptoms in their early teens, with improvement occurring in the late teens and continuing into adulthood. Tourettes Syndrome is a relatively common disorder. Although its exact incidence is uncertain, it is estimated to affect 1 to 10 in 1,000 children.

**Symptoms**
Simple tics are sudden and brief, some of the more common simple tics include eye blinking and other vision things, facial twitching, shoulder shrugging, and head or shoulder jerking. Simple vocals might include repetitive throat-clearing, sniffing, or grunting sounds. Other symptoms are jumping, bending, or twisting. More complex vocal tics include words or phrases. Perhaps the most dramatic and disabling tics include movements that result in self-harm such as punching oneself in the face. The first symptoms usually occur in the head and neck area and may progress to include muscles of the trunk.

**Causes**
Although the cause of TS is unknown, current research points to abnormal in certain brain regions the circuits that interconnect these regions,they are responsible for communication among nerve cells. Given the often complex presentation of TS, the cause of the disorder is likely to be equally complex.

**Treatments**
Right now there is no medications for all people that have TS but, people that have minor TS can get treated. Also some medications cause Tourettes Syndrome.

**Inherited**
Evidence from family studies that TS is inherited, but not all the time will it be inherited. The sex of the person also plays an important role in TS gene expression. At-risk males are more likely to have tics and at-risk females are more likely to have obsessive-compulsive symptoms.It is also possible that the gene-carrying offspring will not develop any TS symptoms.

**Genes**
Scientists may believe that tics are from changes in the brain.

By: Michaela Stambol

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/ts.html

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/tourette-syndrome

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tourette/detail_tourette.htm

http://www.tourette-syndrome.com/tourette-syndrome-information.htm