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Cerebello-cortical network fingerprints differ between essential, Parkinson’s and mimicked tremors
Abstract and Figures
Cerebello-thalamo-cortical loops play a major role in the emergence of pathological tremors and voluntary rhythmic movements. It is unclear whether these loops differ anatomically or functionally in different types of tremor. We compared age- and sex-matched groups of patients with Parkinson's disease or essential tremor and healthy controls (n = 34 per group). High-density 256-channel EEG and multi-channel EMG from extensor and flexor muscles of both wrists were recorded simultaneously while extending the hands against gravity with the forearms supported. Tremor was thereby recorded from patients, and voluntarily mimicked tremor was recorded from healthy controls. Tomographic maps of EEG-EMG coherence were constructed using a beamformer algorithm coherent source analysis. The direction and strength of information flow between different coherent sources were estimated using time-resolved partial-directed coherence analyses. Tremor severity and motor performance measures were correlated with connection strengths between coherent sources. The topography of oscillatory coherent sources in the cerebellum differed significantly among the three groups, but the cortical sources in the primary sensorimotor region and premotor cortex were not significantly different. The cerebellar and cortical source combinations matched well with known cerebello-thalamo-cortical connections derived from functional MRI resting state analyses according to the Buckner-atlas. The cerebellar sources for Parkinson’s tremor and essential tremor mapped primarily to primary sensorimotor cortex, but the cerebellar source for mimicked tremor mapped primarily to premotor cortex. Time-resolved partial-directed coherence analyses revealed activity flow mainly from cerebellum to sensorimotor cortex in Parkinson’s tremor and essential tremor and mainly from cerebral cortex to cerebellum in mimicked tremor. EMG oscillation flowed mainly to the cerebellum in mimicked tremor, but oscillation flowed mainly from the cerebellum to EMG in Parkinson’s and essential tremor. The topography of cerebellar involvement differed among Parkinson’s, essential and mimicked tremors, suggesting different cerebellar mechanisms in tremorogenesis. Indistinguishable areas of sensorimotor cortex and premotor cerebral cortex were involved in all three tremors. Information flow analyses suggest that sensory feedback and cortical efferent copy input to cerebellum are needed to produce mimicked tremor, but tremor in Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor do not depend on these mechanisms. Despite the subtle differences in cerebellar source topography, we found no evidence that the cerebellum is the source of oscillation in essential tremor or that the cortico-bulbo-cerebello-thalamocortical loop plays different tremorogenic roles in Parkinson’s and essential tremor. Additional studies are needed to decipher the seemingly subtle differences in cerebellocortical function in Parkinson’s and essential tremors.
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... offers the ideal temporal scale to address oscillatory activity related to threat processing within particular networks and, thus, may provide insight into the characterization of the spatiotemporal dynamics of brain networks. 10,11 Previous evidence suggests that in rodents, oscillations at the theta range (4-8 Hz) support amygdala-prefrontal coordination and drive physiological threat processing. [12][13][14][15] In human and non-human primates, the emergence of theta oscillations supports the synchronization of amygdala-prefrontal circuits that serve as mechanism for long-range communication and information transfer during threat processing. ...
... 15,16 In humans, prominent theta power during threat processing in prefrontal, frontal, and midline channels has been shown, whereas decrease in alpha activity in parietal and occipital channels occurred. [17][18][19] Additionally, oscillations in the alpha range (8)(9)(10)(11)(12) are well-suited for evaluating the sustained anticipatory attention to threat, 20,21 anticipation, 22 and facilitation of stimulus processing. 23 Decreases in the attention-related alpha activity have shown to be paralleled by increased cortical excitability, 24,25 which renders theta and alpha oscillations a potential target for experimental investigations of sustained attentional engagement to threat processing involving neuromodulatory interference such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). ...
Physiological responses to threat and stress stimuli entrain synchronized neural oscillations among cerebral networks. Network architecture and adaptation may play a critical role in achieving optimal physiological responses, while alteration can lead to mental dysfunction.
We reconstructed cortical and sub-cortical source time series from high-density electroencephalography, which were then fed into community architecture analysis. Dynamic alterations were evaluated in terms of flexibility, clustering coefficient, and global and local efficiency, as parameters of community allegiance. Transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied over the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex during the time window relevant for physiological threat processing and effective connectivity was computed to test the causality of network dynamics.
A theta band-driven community reorganization was evident in key anatomical regions conforming the central executive, salience network, and default mode networks during instructed threat processing. Increased network flexibility entrained the physiological responses to threat processing. The effective connectivity analysis showed that information flow differed between theta and alpha bands and were modulated by transcranial magnetic stimulation in salience and default mode networks during threat processing.
Theta oscillations drive dynamic community network reorganization during threat processing. Nodal community switches may modulate the directionality of information flow and determine physiological responses relevant to mental health.
... Moreover, the oscillations flow from EMG to the cerebellum in mimicked tremor, while the oscillations flow from the cerebellum to EMG in parkinsonian tremor and ET. The results suggest altered cerebellar mechanisms involved in these three types of tremor, and the cerebello-cortical loop is important for parkinsonian tremor and ET [58]. Pedrosa et al. investigated the network difference associated with ET and voluntary tremor, in relation to alcohol intake, using high-density EEG and subject specific structural MRI in 20 ET patients and 20 age-matched controls. ...
... The network studies for ET have shown the involvement of the corticobrainstem-cerebello-thalamo-cortical loop playing a major role in tremor generation [53,54]. Parkinsonian tremor has an involvement of the cerebello-diencephalic-cortical network [55,58]. Finally, the cortico-pallidal connectivity linked with dystonic symptoms demonstrates the involvement of cerebellum [71], and furthermore, impaired cerebello-cortical networks have been observed in focal task related dystonia [72]. ...
The cerebellum plays an important role in movement disorders, specifically in symptoms of ataxia, tremor, and dystonia. Understanding the physiological signals of the cerebellum contributes to insights into the pathophysiology of these movement disorders and holds promise in advancing therapeutic development. Non-invasive techniques such as electroencephalogram and magnetoencephalogram can record neural signals with high temporal resolution at the millisecond level, which is uniquely suitable to interrogate cerebellar physiology. These techniques have recently been implemented to study cerebellar physiology in healthy subjects as well as individuals with movement disorders. In the present review, we focus on the current understanding of cerebellar physiology using these techniques to study movement disorders.
... The latter question is highly interesting for general neuroscience and has been addressed by contrasting tremor and mimicked tremor. Although some differences emerged, there were generally more similarities than differences (Muthuraman et al., 2012(Muthuraman et al., , 2018. Hence, there is currently no consensus on the neural mechanisms underlying involuntary movement and hence no compelling explanation of why tremor cannot be stopped at will. ...
Tremor is one of the cardinal symptoms of Parkinson's disease. The neurophysiology of tremor is not completely understood, and so far it has not been possible to distinguish tremor from voluntary hand movements based on local brain signals.
Here, we re-analyzed magnetoencephalography and local field potential recordings from the subthalamic nucleus of six patients with Parkinson's disease. Data were obtained after withdrawal from dopaminergic medication (Med Off) and after administration of levodopa (Med On). Using gradient-boosted tree learning, we classified epochs as tremor, self-paced fist-clenching, static forearm extension or tremor-free rest.
While decoding performance was low when using subthalamic activity as the only feature (balanced accuracy mean: 38%, std: 7%), we could distinguish the four different motor states when considering cortical and subthalamic features (balanced accuracy mean: 75%, std: 17%). Adding a single cortical area improved classification by 17% on average, as compared to classification based on subthalamic activity alone. In most patients, the most informative cortical areas were sensorimotor cortical regions. Decoding performance was similar in Med On and Med Off.
Our results demonstrate the advantage of monitoring cortical signals in addition to subthalamic activity for movement classification. By combining cortical recordings, subcortical recordings and machine learning, future adaptive systems might be able to detect tremor specifically and distinguish between several motor states.
... Indeed, overlapping CTC involvement and oscillatory flow between the cerebellum and sensorimotor cortex have been reported in patients with PD and ET. 217 Furthermore, longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging in patients with PD has shown increased CTC activity with disease progression, namely greater recruitment of cortical motor-associated and cerebellar areas. 218 In an attempt to reconcile a BG versus CTC hypothesis in PD tremor, a "dimmer-switch" model 219 has been proposed, which postulates that the BG circuit initiates the tremor episodes, whereas the CTC circuit propagates and produces the tremor. ...
Neuronal action potential firing patterns are key components of healthy brain function. Importantly, restoring dysregulated neuronal firing patterns has the potential to be a promising strategy in the development of novel therapeutics for disorders of the central nervous system. Here, we review the pathophysiology of essential tremor and Parkinson's disease, the two most common movement disorders, with a focus on mechanisms underlying the genesis of abnormal firing patterns in the implicated neural circuits. Aberrant burst firing of neurons in the cerebello‐thalamo‐cortical and basal ganglia‐thalamo‐cortical circuits contribute to the clinical symptoms of essential tremor and Parkinson's disease, respectively, and T‐type calcium channels play a key role in regulating this activity in both the disorders. Accordingly, modulating T‐type calcium channel activity has received attention as a potentially promising therapeutic approach to normalize abnormal burst firing in these diseases. In this review, we explore the evidence supporting the theory that T‐type calcium channel blockers can ameliorate the pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying essential tremor and Parkinson's disease, furthering the case for clinical investigation of these compounds. We conclude with key considerations for future investigational efforts, providing a critical framework for the development of much needed agents capable of targeting the dysfunctional circuitry underlying movement disorders such as essential tremor, Parkinson's disease, and beyond.
... Finally, the connectivity values among brain regions (time range: −1.5 to 1.5 s) were estimated using the temporal partial directed coherence method (TPDC). The TPDC method has been described previously (Muthuraman et al., 2018). The TPDC is a time-frequency causality technique, which is used to infer the strength of time-varying causal information flow among brain regions in a specific frequency (Anwar et al., 2013). ...
Objective
To evaluate cortical excitability during instructed threat processing.
Methods
Single and paired transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses were applied to the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) during high-density electroencephalography (EEG) recording in young healthy participants ( n = 17) performing an instructed threat paradigm in which one of two conditioned stimuli (CS+ but not CS-) was paired with an electric shock (unconditioned stimulus [US]). We assessed TMS-induced EEG responses with spectral power (both at electrode and source level) and information flow (effective connectivity) using Time-resolved Partial Directed Coherence (TPDC). Support vector regression (SVR) was used to predict behavioral fear ratings for CS+ based on TMS impact on excitability.
Results
During intracortical facilitation (ICF), frontal lobe theta power was enhanced for CS+ compared to single pulse TMS for the time window 0–0.5 s after TMS pulse onset ( t (16) = 3.9, p < 0.05). At source level, ICF led to an increase and short intracortical inhibition (SICI) to a decrease of theta power in the bilateral dmPFC, relative to single pulse TMS during 0–0.5 s. Compared to single pulse TMS, ICF increased information flows, whereas SICI reduced the information flows in theta band between dmPFC, amygdala, and hippocampus (all at p < 0.05). The magnitude of information flows between dmPFC to amygdala and dmPFC to hippocampus during ICF (0–0.5 s), predicted individual behavioral fear ratings (CS+; coefficient above 0.75).
Conclusion
Distinct excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms take place in the dmPFC. These findings may facilitate future research attempting to investigate inhibitory/facilitatory mechanisms alterations in psychiatric disorders and their behavioral correlates.
... To analyze the directed connectivity at a specific frequency, we used time-resolved partial directed coherence (TPDC). Due to its insensitivity to indirect influences, it has been used for both fNIRS and fMRI studies 37,53 . The TPDC 54 adopts the dual-extended Kalman filter 55 to estimate time-dependent autoregressive coefficients. ...
Treadmill training (TT) has been extensively used as an intervention to improve gait and mobility in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Regional and global effects on brain activity could be induced through TT. Training effects can lead to a beneficial shift of interregional connectivity towards a physiological range. The current work investigates the effects of TT on brain activity and connectivity during walking and at rest by using both functional near-infrared spectroscopy and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Nineteen PD patients (74.0 ± 6.59 years, 13 males, disease duration 10.45 ± 6.83 years) before and after 6 weeks of TT, along with 19 age-matched healthy controls were assessed. Interregional effective connectivity (EC) between cortical and subcortical regions were assessed and its interrelation to prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. Support vector regression (SVR) on the resting-state ECs was used to predict prefrontal connectivity. In response to TT, EC analysis indicated modifications in the patients with PD towards the level of healthy controls during walking and at rest. SVR revealed cerebellum related connectivity patterns that were associated with the training effect on PFC. These findings suggest that the potential therapeutic effect of training on brain activity may be facilitated via changes in compensatory modulation of the cerebellar interregional connectivity. npj Parkinson's Disease (2022) 8:153 ; https://doi.
Pesticides are a heterogeneous class of chemicals mainly used for the protection of crops from pests. Because of their very widespread use, acute or/and chronic exposure to these chemicals can lead to a plethora of sequelae inflicting diseases, many of which involve the nervous system. Tremor has been associated with pesticide exposure in human and animal studies. This review is aimed at assessing the studies currently available on the association between the various types of pesticides/insecticides and tremor, while also accounting for potential confounding factors. To our knowledge, this is the first coherent review on the subject. After appraising the available evidence, we call for more intensive research on this topic, as well as intonate the need of implementing future preventive measures to protect the exposed populations and to reduce potential disabilities and social drawbacks.
Essential tremor (ET) is a prevalent movement disorder characterized by marked clinical heterogeneity. Here, we explored the morphometric underpinnings of this cross-subject variability on a cohort of 34 patients with right-dominant drug-resistant ET and 29 matched healthy controls (HCs). For each brain region, group-wise morphometric data was modelled by a multivariate Gaussian to account for morphometric features’ (co)variance.
No group differences were found in terms of mean values, highlighting the limits of more basic group comparison approaches. Variance in surface area was higher in ET in the left lingual and caudal anterior cingulate cortices, while variance in mean curvature was lower in the right superior temporal cortex and pars triangularis, left supramarginal gyrus and bilateral paracentral gyrus. Heterogeneity further extended to the right putamen, for which a mixture of two Gaussians fitted the ET data better than a single one.
Partial Least Squares analysis revealed the rich clinical relevance of the ET population’s heterogeneity: first, increased head tremor and longer symptoms’ duration were accompanied by broadly lower cortical gyrification. Second, more severe upper limb tremor and impairments in daily life activities characterized the patients whose morphometric profiles were more atypical compared to the average ET population, irrespective of the exact nature of the alterations.
Our results provide candidate morphometric substrates for two different types of clinical variability in ET. They also demonstrate the importance of relying on analytical approaches that can efficiently handle multivariate data and enable to test more sophisticated hypotheses regarding its organization.
Background: Essential tremor (ET) is one of the most common hyperkinetic movement disorders. Previous research into the pathophysiology of ET suggested underlying cerebellar abnormalities.
Objective: In this study, we added electromyography as an index of tremor intensity to functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (EMG-fMRI) to study a group of ET patients selected according to strict criteria to achieve maximal homogeneity. With this approach we expected to improve upon the localization of the bilateral cerebellar abnormalities found in earlier fMRI studies.
Methods: We included 21 propranolol sensitive patients, who were not using other tremor medication, with a definite diagnosis of ET defined by the Tremor Investigation Group. Simultaneous EMG-fMRI recordings were performed while patients were off tremor medication. Patients performed unilateral right hand and arm extension, inducing tremor, alternated with relaxation (rest). Twenty-one healthy, age- and sex-matched participants mimicked tremor during right arm extension. EMG power variability at the individual tremor frequency as a measure of tremor intensity variability was used as a regressor, mathematically independent of the block regressor, in the general linear model used for fMRI analysis, to find specific tremor-related activations.
Results: Block-related activations were found in the classical upper-limb motor network, both for ET patients and healthy participants in motor, premotor and supplementary motor areas. In ET patients, we found tremor-related activations bilaterally in the cerebellum: in left lobules V, VI, VIIb and IX and in right lobules V, VI, VIIIa and b, and in the brainstem. In healthy controls we found simulated tremor-related activations in right cerebellar lobule V.
Conclusions: Our results expand on previous findings of bilateral cerebellar involvement in ET. We have identified specific areas in the bilateral somatomotor regions of the cerebellum: lobules V, VI and VIII.
Background. Neurocognitive performance deficits have been observed in mood disorder patients and their unaffected relatives and may therefore qualify as endophenotypes. However, the precise time course of neurocognitive deficits has not been studied so that it is unknown whether neurocognitive abnormalities reflect the early effects of familial vulnerability to mood disorders or if they emerge at illness onset.
Method. A neuropsychological test battery was administered at baseline and after a 2-year follow-up interval in 111 initially unaffected young adults at high familial risk of mood disorders and 93 healthy controls (HC). During the follow-up period, 20 high-risk subjects developed major depressive disorder (HR-MDD), with the remainder remaining well (HRwell). Linear mixed-effects models were used to investigate differences and longitudinal changes in the domains of attentional processing, working memory, verbal learning and memory, and cognitive flexibility.
Results. Reduced long delay verbal memory and extradimensional set-shifting performance across both time Points were found in the HR-well group relative to controls. The HR-MDD group displayed decreased extradimensional setshifting abilities across both time points as compared with the HC group only. There were no significant performance differences between the two high-risk groups.
Conclusions. Reduced verbal memory and cognitiveflexibility are familial trait markers for vulnerability to mood disorders in individuals with a close family history of bipolar disorder. Both neurocognitive performance deficits appear to be relatively stable over a 2-year time period and do not appear to be linked to the onset of MDD. These findings support their use as stable quantitative endophenotypes for mood disorders.
Postural tremor is the leading symptom in essential tremor, but in some cases intention tremor and limb ataxia emerge and can become highly disabling features. Deep brain stimulation of the thalamus or subthalamic white matter improve tremor and ataxia; however, the underlying network mechanisms are enigmatic. To elucidate the mechanisms of deep brain stimulation in essential tremor, we pursued a multimodal approach combining kinematic measures of reach-to-grasp movements, clinical assessments, physiological measures of neuronal excitability and probabilistic tractography from diffusion tensor imaging. Seven patients with essential tremor (age 62.9 ± 10.3 years, two females) received thalamic deep brain stimulation and a clinical examination of severity of limb tremor and ataxia at off stimulation, using therapeutic and supratherapeutic stimulation parameters. A reach-to-grasp task based on acoustic cues was also performed. To examine the electrical properties of target structures, we determined the chronaxie of neural elements modulated. A control group of 13 healthy subjects (age 56 ± 7.6 years, five females) underwent whole-brain diffusion tensor imaging at 3 T. Probabilistic tractography was applied in healthy subjects from seeds in cerebellum and midbrain to reconstruct the connectivity pattern of the subthalamic area. The positions of stimulation electrodes in patients were transferred into probability maps and connectivity values were correlated to clinical outcome measures. Therapeutic stimulation improved ataxia and tremor mainly during the target period of the reaching paradigm (63% reduction compared with off stimulation). Notably the acceleration (29%) and deceleration periods (41%) were improved. By contrast, supratherapeutic stimulation worsened ataxia during the deceleration period with a 55% increase of spatial variability, while maintaining near complete suppression of tremor. Chronaxie measures were in the range of rapidly-conducting myelinated fibres with significantly different values for the anti-tremor effect of therapeutic stimulation (27 s) and the pro-ataxic effect of supratherapeutic stimulation (52 s). The degree of connectivity to the dentato-thalamic tract at the stimulating electrode correlated significantly with the reduction of tremor in the therapeutic condition. Our data suggest that stimulation induced tremor reduction and induction of ataxia by supratherapeutic stimulation are mediated by different fibre systems. Probalistic tractography identified the dentato-thalamic tract as a likely target of tremor suppression. Stimulation-induced ataxia may be caused by additional recruitment of adjacent fibre systems at higher amplitudes. Stimulation with short pulse duration may help to increase the therapeutic window and focus on the anti-tremor effect.
The cerebrocerebellar circuit is a feedback circuit that bidirectionally connects the neocortex and the cerebellum. According to the classic view, the cerebrocerebellar circuit is specifically involved in the functional regulation of the motor areas of the neocortex. In recent years, studies carried out in experimental animals by morphological and physiological methods, and in humans by magnetic resonance imaging, have indicated that the cerebrocerebellar circuit is also involved in the functional regulation of the nonmotor areas of the neocortex, including the prefrontal, associative, sensory and limbic areas. Moreover, a second type of cerebrocerebellar circuit, bidirectionally connecting the hypothalamus and the cerebellum, has been detected, being specifically involved in the regulation of the hypothalamic functions. This review analyzes the morphological features of the centers and pathways of the cerebrocerebellar circuits, paying particular attention to their organization in different channels, which separately connect the cerebellum with the motor areas and nonmotor areas of the neocortex, and with the hypothalamus. Actually, a considerable amount of new data have led, and are leading, to profound changes on the views on the anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology of the cerebrocerebellar circuits, so much they may be now considered to be essential for the functional regulation of many neocortex areas, perhaps all, as well as of the hypothalamus and of the limbic system. Accordingly, clinical studies have pointed out an involvement of the cerebrocerebellar circuits in the pathophysiology of an increasing number of neuropsychiatric disorders
Understanding the modularity of fMRI-derived brain networks or 'connectomes' can inform the study of brain function organization. However, fMRI connectomes additionally involve negative edges, which may not be optimally accounted for by existing approaches to modularity that variably threshold, binarize, or arbitrarily weight these connections. Consequently, many existing Q maximization-based modularity algorithms yield variable modular structures. Here we present an alternative complementary approach that exploits how frequent the BOLD-signal correlation between two nodes is negative. We validated this novel probability-based modularity approach on two independent publicly-available resting-state connectome datasets (the Human Connectome Project and the 1000 Functional Connectomes) and demonstrated that negative correlations alone are sufficient in understanding resting-state modularity. In fact, this approach a) permits a dual formulation, leading to equivalent solutions regardless of whether one considers positive or negative edges; b) is theoretically linked to the Ising model defined on the connectome, thus yielding modularity result that maximizes data likelihood. Additionally, we were able to detect novel and consistent sex differences in modularity in both datasets. As datasets like HCP become widely available for analysis by the neuroscience community at large, alternative and perhaps more advantageous computational tools to understand the neurobiological information of negative edges in fMRI connectomes are increasingly important. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Parkinson's resting tremor is related to altered cerebral activity in the basal ganglia and the cerebello-thalamo-cortical circuit. Although Parkinson's disease is characterized by dopamine depletion in the basal ganglia, the dopaminergic basis of resting tremor remains unclear: dopaminergic medication reduces tremor in some patients, but many patients have a dopamine-resistant tremor. Using pharmacological functional magnetic resonance imaging, we test how a dopaminergic intervention influences the cerebral circuit involved in Parkinson's tremor. From a sample of 40 patients with Parkinson's disease, we selected 15 patients with a clearly tremor-dominant phenotype. We compared tremor-related activity and effective connectivity (using combined electromyog-raphy-functional magnetic resonance imaging) on two occasions: ON and OFF dopaminergic medication. Building on a recently developed cerebral model of Parkinson's tremor, we tested the effect of dopamine on cerebral activity associated with the onset of tremor episodes (in the basal ganglia) and with tremor amplitude (in the cerebello-thalamo-cortical circuit). Dopaminergic medication reduced clinical resting tremor scores (mean 28%, range À12 to 68%). Furthermore, dopaminergic medication reduced tremor onset-related activity in the globus pallidus and tremor amplitude-related activity in the thalamic ventral intermediate nucleus. Network analyses using dynamic causal modelling showed that dopamine directly increased self-inhibition of the ventral intermediate nucleus, rather than indirectly influencing the cerebello-thalamo-cortical circuit through the basal ganglia. Crucially, the magnitude of thalamic self-inhibition predicted the clinical dopamine response of tremor. Dopamine reduces resting tremor by potentiating inhibitory mechanisms in a cerebellar nucleus of the thalamus (ventral intermediate nucleus). This suggests that altered dopaminergic projections to the cerebello-thalamo-cortical circuit have a role in Parkinson's tremor.
Few detailed clinico-pathological correlations of Parkinson's disease have been published. The pathological findings in 100 patients diagnosed prospectively by a group of consultant neurologists as having idiopathic Parkinson's disease are reported. Seventy six had nigral Lewy bodies, and in all of these Lewy bodies were also found in the cerebral cortex. In 24 cases without Lewy bodies, diagnoses included progressive supranuclear palsy, multiple system atrophy, Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer-type pathology, and basal ganglia vascular disease. The retrospective application of recommended diagnostic criteria improved the diagnostic accuracy to 82%. These observations call into question current concepts of Parkinson's disease as a single distinct morbid entity.
Although tremor is a highly prevalent movement disorder, progress in this field is limited because of the poor understanding of many of the underlying conditions. This review summarizes recent treatment attempts since 2013. For essential tremor, recent innovations are phase I or II studies of Octanol, several clinically relevant refinements for deep brain stimulation, and the development of the new magnetic resonance imaging guided focused ultrasound technique. Further new invasive and noninvasive electrical and magnetic stimulation techniques have been tested for essential tremor and parkinsonian tremor. For multiple sclerosis tremor, some open-label observations have shown positive results (natalizumab, dalfampridine, levetiracetam), whereas controlled trials using cannabinoids have been negative. Functional tremor has shown a positive response to retrainment. Neuroprosthetic devices have been tested in a variety of tremor conditions. Several promising medical and surgical treatment trials are underway and will be completed shortly. © 2015 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.
© 2015 Movement Disorder Society.