Focal Task-Specific Dystonia: An M1-Centered TSMS Framework
Paper 1 introduces the core M1 synergy framework and the structured motor retraining protocol.
Read Paper 1Defeating Dystonia is grounded in extensive neuroscience research into focal task-specific dystonia (FTSD), along with firsthand experience and recovery. It presents a proposed cause, mechanism, and cure for FTSD through a structured motor retraining protocol.
Defeating Dystonia is an organization built to end FTSD. The mission is straightforward: to help cure as many people with FTSD as possible through a structured motor retraining approach, and to make that approach mainstream and accessible so patients can find it quickly, understand it, and apply it, instead of spending years sifting through noise and dead ends.
Right now, when people search dystonia online, they are often met with major hospital websites that still describe it as incurable and lifelong. For patients, that message can be devastating.
Part of the reason patients keep encountering that message is the research-to-practice lag. Public-facing clinical information is not always updated to reflect newer research, leaving a gap between the research literature and what is communicated in everyday clinical practice and public-facing resources. Defeating Dystonia exists to close that gap by making the path to cure easier to find, clearer to understand, and practical to follow.
Here are the two papers published in Brain Sciences and the research presentaions at SfN 2025 and CNS 2026.
Paper 1 introduces the core M1 synergy framework and the structured motor retraining protocol.
Read Paper 1Paper 2 extends the model beyond M1, reframing network-level findings as downstream adaptations and proposing a causal-architecture-based taxonomy of dystonia.
Read Paper 2Research presentation at Society for Neuroscience's (SfN) annual conference, Neuroscience 2025.
Read PresentationResearch presentation at Organization for Computational Neurosciences's annual conference, Computational Neuroscience Meeting 2026.
Read PresentationFeel free to reach out with questions or for guidance on how to apply the retraining approach to resolve your FTSD.
You can contact me directly by email or go to our Facebook group to ask a public question, share progress, or discuss and learn with others.