video: Essential tremor is the most common movement disorder that affects 4% of adults and up to 20% of elderly people. Throughout the quest from human pathology to animal studies, we found that neurons in the back of the brain, called cerebellum, have too much oscillatory electric activity to cause tremor. We then developed a new technology called cerebellar electroencephalography (cerebellar EEG) to record human cerebellar activities non-invasively. Cerebellar EEG confirms that excessive cerebellar oscillations also existed in patients with essential tremor and may serve as the first biomarker of tremor. With the new technology and biomarker, we may be able to guide the therapeutic development and help tremor patients. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Jan. 15, 2020, issue of Science Translational Medicine, published by AAAS. The paper, by M.-K. Pan at National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei City, Taiwan; and colleagues was titled, "Cerebellar oscillations driven by synaptic pruning deficits of cerebellar climbing fibers contribute to tremor pathophysiology." view more
Credit: Ming-Kai Pan, M.D., Ph.D. and Sheng-Han Kuo, M.D.