Visual Cues in Essential Tremor |
Man-Wook Seo, and William C Koller |
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Copyright © 2000 The Korean Society of Clinical Neurophysiology |
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited. |
ABSTRACT |
Purpose : The pathophysiology of essential tremor(ET) remains unknown. PET studies of ET showed some conflicting data. One study reported significant glucose hypermetabolism of the medulla and thalami, but other studies reported abnormal bilateral overactivity of cerebellar and red nuclear connections. The previous experimental studies suggested that each PET finding reflects a part of neural circuit which is responsible for ET. So it can be imagined that olivocerebellar oscillation may be transmitted by the way of cerebellar projections to the thalamus in ET. It has been reported that the cerebellar dentate nucleus neurons are involved in the generation and/or guidance of movement based on visual cues. The purpose of this study is to clarify the role of dentato-thalamic tract in ET. Methods : Tremor amplitudes were recorded as each patient perform two kinds of task, one involving sensory-guided movement and the other involveing memory-guided movement. Each patient was asked to perfome the same movements with his/her eyes closed ET. Results : The results showed that average amplitudes of tremor were significantly higher during visually guided task than during memory guided task in ET patients. Conclusions : Our results led us to conclude that dentato-thalamic tract might be related to the control of tremor I ET. |
Key words:
Essential tremor, Visual cues, Dentatothalamic tract |
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