White matter microstructure damage in tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease patients

Resting tremor is one of the cardinal motor features of Parkinson's disease (PD). Several lines of evidence suggest resting tremor may have different underlying pathophysiological processes from those of bradykinesia and rigidity. The current study aims to identify white matter microstructural abnormalities associated with resting tremor in PD.

We recruited 60 patients with PD (30 with tremor-dominant PD and 30 with nontremor-dominant PD) and 26 normal controls. All participants underwent clinical assessment and diffusion tensor MRI. We used tract-based spatial statistics to investigate white matter integrity across the entire white matter tract skeleton.

Compared with both healthy controls and the nontremor-dominant PD patients, the tremor-dominant PD patients were characterized by increased mean diffusivity (MD) and axial diffusivity (AD) along multiple white matter tracts, mainly involving the cerebello-thalamo-cortical (CTC) pathway. The mean AD value in clusters with significant difference was correlated with resting tremor score in the tremor-dominant PD patients. There was no significant difference between the nontremor-dominant PD patients and controls.

Our results support the notion that resting tremor in PD is a distinct condition in which significant microstructural white matter changes exist and provide evidence for the involvement of the CTC in tremor genesis of PD.