Neuroscientist Joaquin Farias trained as a professional musician in his youth. He played the harpsichord, flute and piano. When he was 21, something changed — he felt as though he could not properly control his fingers. “It felt like I was moving my fingers under water,” he says. His muscles would freeze up and he could no longer play his instruments with the correct finger pressure.
Farias was affected by dystonia, a movement disorder that, in his case, was specific to his musical endeavors. “It was not there when performing other tasks,” he says. Known also as musician’s focal dystonia, the disorder often prompts the end of a professional musician’s career.
