RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Essential Head Tremor Is Associated with Cerebellar Vermis Atrophy: A Volumetric and Voxel-Based Morphometry MR Imaging Study
JF American Journal of Neuroradiology
JO Am. J. Neuroradiol.
FD American Society of Neuroradiology
SP 1692
OP 1697
DO 10.3174/ajnr.A1190
VO 29
IS 9
A1 A. Quattrone
A1 A. Cerasa
A1 D. Messina
A1 G. Nicoletti
A1 G.E. Hagberg
A1 L. Lemieux
A1 F. Novellino
A1 P. Lanza
A1 G. Arabia
A1 M. Salsone
YR 2008
UL http://www.ajnr.org/content/29/9/1692.abstract
AB BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Our aim was to investigate the presence of brain gray matter (GM) abnormalities in patients with different forms of essential tremor (ET).MATERIALS AND METHODS: We used optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and manually traced single region-of-interest analysis in 50 patients with familial ET and in 32 healthy subjects. Thirty patients with ET had tremor of the arms (a-ET), whereas the remaining 20 patients had both arm and head tremor (h-ET).RESULTS: VBM showed marked atrophy of the cerebellar vermis in the patients with h-ET with respect to healthy subjects (Pcorrected < .001). Patients with a-ET showed a trend toward a vermal GM volume loss that did not reach a significant difference with respect to healthy controls (Puncorrected < .01). The region-of-interest analysis showed a reduction of the cerebellar volume (CV) in the h-ET group (98.2 ± 13.6 mm3) compared with healthy controls (110.5 ± 15.5 mm3, P < .012) as well as in the entire vermal area (790.3 ± 94.5 mm2, 898.6 ± 170.6 mm2, P < .04 in h-ET and control groups, respectively).CONCLUSIONS: Atrophy of the cerebellar vermis detected in patients with h-ET strongly supports the evidence for the involvement of the cerebellum in the pathophysiology of ET. The lack of a significant CV loss observed in patients with a-ET suggests that a-ET and h-ET might represent distinct subtypes of the same disease.