Resting state fMRI reveals the altered synchronization of BOLD signals in essential tremor

Essential tremor (ET) is one of the most common movement disorders in humans. Nevertheless, there remain several controversies surrounding ET, such as whether it is a disorder of abnormal neuronal oscillations within the tremor network. In this work, the resting-state fMRI data were collected from 17 ET patients and 17 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. First, using FOur-dimensional (spatiotemporal) Consistency of local neural Activities (FOCA) the abnormal synchronization of fMRI signals in ET patients were investigated. Then, global functional connectivity intensity (gFCI) and density (gFCD) were analyzed in the regions exhibiting significant FOCA differences. Compared with healthy controls, patients with ET showed the increased FOCA values found in the bilateral cuneus, the left lingual gyrus, the left paracentral lobule, the right middle temporal gyrus, the bilateral precentral gyrus, the right postcentral gyrus, the pallidum and putamen. Decreased FOCA values in ET patients were located in the frontal gyrus, the bilateral anterior cingulate and the medial dorsal nucleus of right thalamus. In ET patients, significant changes in gFCI and gFCD were located in the cuneus, the middle temporal gyrus and the middle frontal gyrus. Changes in gFCI were also found in the medial frontal gyrus and thalamus in addition to changes in gFCD in the precentral gyrus. Our results provided further evidence that ET might present with abnormal spontaneous activity in the tremor network, including motor-related cotex, basal ganglia and thalamus, as well as distributed non-motor areas. This work also demonstrated that FOCA and functional connectivity have the potential to provide important insight into the pathophysiological mechanism of ET.