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 Quattrone, A.
A1 Cerasa, A.
A1 Messina, D.
A1 Nicoletti, G.
A1 Hagberg, G.E.
A1 Lemieux, L.
A1 Novellino, F.
A1 Lanza, P.
A1 Arabia, G.
A1 Salsone, M.
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.