Behavioral Markers of Essential Tremor Correlate with Distributed Alteration of Brain Functional Connectivity

Mean spectral amplitude (MSA) from limb kinematics is linked to distributed alterations in resting-state functional brain network topology in essential tremor (ET) patients versus neurologically intact (NI) age-matched participants.

• Why it matters: ET lacks a definitive biological marker, and the cerebello-thalamo-cortical pathway’s role remains incompletely characterized, limiting objective diagnosis and mechanistic insight.
• What they did: The study related MSA and Fahn Tolosa Marin Tremor Rating Scale (FTM-TRS) scores to rs-fMRI connectivity using seed-based and whole-brain graph-theoretical analyses in ET and NI age-matched groups.
• The result: ET showed reduced dentate nucleus connectivity to cerebello-thalamo-cortical components and distributed network-topology changes; multiple graph metrics correlated with FTM-TRS and/or MSA, supporting MSA as a candidate quantitative marker.

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