Divergent Regional Brain Ageing in Essential Tremor

Essential tremor (ET) is the most common movement disorder in the elderly. Despite a close relationship between ET onset and age, it remains unclear whether ET reflects accelerated brain ageing or disease-specific structural changes. This study investigated whether ET is associated with accelerated global brain ageing or altered regional ageing patterns.

We studied 38 ET patients and 37 matched controls using 3T structural and diffusion MRI alongside clinical assessments. Brain age and brain age gap (BAG; the difference between chronological and brain age) were estimated by a deep learning model. We analyzed group differences in global brain morphometry, and regional correlations between brain age and volumetric data. Regions demonstrating differential ageing in ET were combined into a composite metric to characterize disease-specific effects.

Spatial patterns of brain ageing differed between ET and controls despite no evidence of globally accelerated ageing. In controls, brain age was associated with enlarged ventricles and diffuse cortical thinning, consistent with prototypical ageing. In contrast, ET showed strong negative associations between brain age and volumes specifically in the cerebellar cortex, thalami, and cortical tremor network. A composite metric comprising these regions demonstrated a significant interaction with group and predicted brain age, with ET patients showing volume reduction.

ET is characterized by a distinct, disease-specific pattern of brain ageing rather than accelerated global ageing. This suggests that ET al.ters the spatial distribution of age-related structural changes, preferentially affecting the tremor network, and may help explain ET clinical heterogeneity.