Structural changes in cerebellar outflow tracts after thalamotomy in essential tremor

Arthur W. G. Buijink, Matthan W. A. Caan, M. Fiorella Contarino, P. Richard Schuurman, Pepijn van den Munckhof, Rob M. A. de Bie, Silvia Delgado Olabarriaga, Johannes D. Speelman, Anne-Fleur van Rootselaar

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10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study set out to determine whether structural changes are present outside the thalamus after thalamotomy in patients with essential tremor (ET), specifically in the cerebellorubrothalamic tracts. We hypothesized that diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) would detect these changes. We collected DTI scans and analyzed differences in Fractional Anisotropy (FA) and Mean Diffusivity (MD) between the left and right superior and middle cerebellar peduncle in ET patients that have undergone unilateral, left, thalamotomy and ET patients that did not undergo thalamotomy (control group). We used classical ROI-based statistics to determine whether changes are present. We found decreased FA and increased MD values in the right superior cerebellar peduncle leading to the left, lesioned thalamus, only in the thalamotomy group. Our study suggests long-term structural changes in the cerebellorubrothalamic tract after thalamotomy. This contributes to further understanding of the biological mechanism following surgical lesions in the basal ganglia
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)554-557
JournalParkinsonism & Related Disorders
Volume20
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

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