Study of resting state cortico-cortical synchronization aimed to accurately discriminate Parkinson and essential tremor patients: A MEG signal-space connectivity study

Abstract

Motor tremor-related syndromes like essential tremor (ET) and Parkinson?s disease (PD) have a common symptomatology in early stages: the presence of tremor. Even when both diseases have a different aetiology and, thus, different prognosis and treatment, the symptoms in early stages are quite similar. This usually leads to misdiagnosis, with the associated risks and limitations. A PD patient with an ET treatment will continue developing the disease, loosing an important window of action. On the other hand, an ET patient with a PD treatment will suffer strong side effects. A correct diagnosis is in both cases mandatory for the well-being of the patients. In this experiment we tried to find a biomarker based in magneto-physiological data that allows clinicians a faster and easier diagnosis of ET and PD patients, saving time and money to both patients and hospitals.