Steina Alexandra, Sure Sarah, Butz Markus, Vesper Jan, Schnitzler Alfons, Hirschmann Jan
Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Department of Functional Neurosurgery and Stereotaxy, Neurosurgical Clinic, Medical Faculty, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Mov Disord. 2025 May;40(5):896-905. doi: 10.1002/mds.30165. Epub 2025 Mar 3.
Essential tremor is hypothesized to emerge from synchronized oscillatory activity within the cerebello-thalamo-cortical circuit. However, this hypothesis has not yet been tested using local field potentials directly recorded from the thalamus alongside signals from both the cortex and cerebellum, leaving a gap in the understanding of essential tremor.
To clarify the importance of cerebello-thalamo-cortical oscillatory coupling for essential tremor.
We investigated oscillatory coupling between thalamic local field potentials and simultaneously recorded magnetoencephalography in 19 essential tremor patients with externalized deep brain stimulation electrodes. Brain activity was measured while patients repeatedly adopted a tremor-provoking posture and while pouring rice grains from one cup to another. In a whole-brain analysis of coherence between the ventral intermediate nucleus of the thalamus and cortex we contrasted epochs containing tremor and epochs lacking tremor.
Both postural and kinetic tremor were associated with an increase of thalamic power and thalamo-cortex coherence at individual tremor frequency in the bilateral cerebellum and primary sensorimotor cortex contralateral to tremor. These areas also exhibited an increase in corticomuscular coherence in the presence of tremor. The coupling of motor cortex to both thalamus and muscle correlated with tremor amplitude during postural tremor.
These results demonstrate that essential tremor is indeed associated with increased oscillatory coupling at tremor frequency within a cerebello-thalamo-cortical network, with coupling strength directly reflecting tremor severity. © 2025 The Author(s). Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.
原发性震颤被认为源于小脑-丘脑-皮质回路内的同步振荡活动。然而，这一假说尚未通过直接从丘脑记录的局部场电位以及来自皮质和小脑的信号进行检验，这使得对原发性震颤的理解存在空白。
阐明小脑-丘脑-皮质振荡耦合对原发性震颤的重要性。
我们在19例植入外置式深部脑刺激电极的原发性震颤患者中，研究了丘脑局部场电位与同步记录的脑磁图之间的振荡耦合。在患者反复采取诱发震颤的姿势以及将米粒从一个杯子倒入另一个杯子时，测量脑活动。在对丘脑腹中间核与皮质之间的相干性进行全脑分析时，我们对比了包含震颤的时段和无震颤的时段。
姿势性震颤和动作性震颤均与双侧小脑以及震颤对侧的初级感觉运动皮质在个体震颤频率下的丘脑功率和丘脑-皮质相干性增加有关。在存在震颤时，这些区域的皮质-肌肉相干性也增加。在姿势性震颤期间，运动皮质与丘脑和肌肉的耦合与震颤幅度相关。
这些结果表明，原发性震颤确实与小脑-丘脑-皮质网络内震颤频率下振荡耦合的增加有关，耦合强度直接反映震颤严重程度。© 2025作者。《运动障碍》由威利期刊有限责任公司代表国际帕金森和运动障碍协会出版。
