High Width Variability during Spiral Drawing: Further Evidence of Cerebellar Dysfunction in Essential Tremor

• Published in: Cerebellum (London, England) Vol. 11; no. 4; pp. 872 - 879
• Main Authors: Louis, Elan D., Gillman, Arthur, Boschung, Sarah, Hess, Christopher W., Yu, Qiping, Pullman, Seth L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer-Verlag 01.12.2012; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Ataxia; Biomechanical Phenomena - physiology; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Cerebellar Diseases - physiopathology; Cerebellum; Cerebellum - physiopathology; Data processing; Essential Tremor - physiopathology; Female; gait; Hand - physiopathology; Head; Humans; Kinematics; Male; Motivation; Neurobiology; Neurological diseases; Neurology; Neurosciences; Original Paper; Task Performance and Analysis; tremor; Cerebellum; Clinical; Ataxia; Essential tremor; Spiral analysis; Case–control
• ISSN: 1473-4222; 1473-4230; 1473-4230
• DOI: 10.1007/s12311-011-0352-4

Essential tremor (ET) is among the most prevalent neurological diseases, yet the location of the primary disease substrate continues to be a matter of debate. The presence of intention tremor and mild gait ataxia suggests an underlying abnormality of the cerebellum and/or cerebellar pathways. Uncovering additional signs of cerebellar dysfunction would further substantiate the proposition that ET is a disease of the cerebellar system. We evaluated 145 ET cases and 34 normal controls clinically and by computerized spiral analysis. Spiral analysis is a program that objectively characterizes kinematic and physiologic features of hand-drawn spirals using specific calculated spiral indices that correlate with spiral shape and motor execution. We used the spiral width variability index (SWVI), a measure of loop-to-loop spiral width variation with the influence of tremor removed, as a metric of drawing ataxia. The SWVI was higher in cases than controls (0.91 ± 1.94, median = 0.46 vs. 0.40 ± 0.29, median = 0.30, p  < 0.001). Cases with higher SWVI also had greater intention tremor during the finger–nose–finger maneuver, r  = 0.27, p  = 0.001), and cases with intention tremor of the head had the highest SWVI (1.57 ± 3.44, median = 0.51, p  < 0.001). There was a modest association between SWVI and number of missteps during tandem gait ( r  = 0.16, p  = 0.06). The primary anatomical substrate for ET continues to be a matter of speculation, yet these and other clinical data lend support to the notion that there is an underlying abnormality of the cerebellum and/or its pathways.