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. 2022 Jun;21(3):425-431.
doi: 10.1007/s12311-021-01309-9. Epub 2021 Aug 3.

Cerebellar Oscillations in Familial and Sporadic Essential Tremor

Shi-Bing Wong  1   2 , Yi-Mei Wang  3   4 , Chih-Chun Lin  5   6 , Scott Kun Geng  7 , Nora Vanegas-Arroyave  8 , Seth L Pullman  5 , Sheng-Han Kuo  5   6 , Ming-Kai Pan  9   10   11   12   13
Affiliations

Cerebellar Oscillations in Familial and Sporadic Essential Tremor

Shi-Bing Wong et al. Cerebellum. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Enhanced cerebellar oscillations have recently been identified in essential tremor (ET) patients as a key pathophysiological change. Since ET is considered a heterogeneous group of diseases, we investigated whether cerebellar oscillations differ in ET subtypes (familial vs. sporadic). This study aims to determine cerebellar physiology in familial and sporadic ET. Using surface electroencephalogram, we studied cerebellar physiology in 40 ET cases (n = 22 familial and n = 18 sporadic) and 20 age-matched controls. Both familial and sporadic ET cases had an increase in the intensity of cerebellar oscillations when compared to controls. Interestingly, cerebellar oscillations correlated with tremor severity in familial ET but not in sporadic ET. Our study demonstrated that ET cases have enhanced cerebellar oscillations, and the different relationships between cerebellar oscillations and tremor severity in familial and sporadic ET suggest diverse cerebellar pathophysiology.

Keywords: Cerebellum; Electroencephalogram; Essential tremor; Oscillation; Physiology; Tremor.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
A Schematic of the surface cerebellar electroencephalogram. Cerebellar electrodes (red) were placed below the inion (black dot), over the surface of the cerebellar region. B Representative raw traces of cerebellar electroencephalogram. C After transformation, the power spectrum density (PSD) of each frequency was calculated. We summed up the PSD of the peak and the two adjacent frequencies (± 1 Hz to the peak, blue), divided the sum by the total PSD between 2 and 55 Hz (yellow, only up to 30 Hz was shown), and scaled by 100 to calculate the cerebellar oscillatory index
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
A The comparison between the cerebellar oscillatory index (COI) between familial (liberal and conservative criteria), sporadic ET, and controls. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01. B The correlation between COI and tremor severity in familial ET (liberal) cases. C The correlation between COI and tremor severity in familial ET (conservative) cases. D The correlations between COI and tremor severity in sporadic ET cases
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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