Persistence of Basal Ganglia Oscillatory Activity During Tremor Attenuation by Movement in Parkinson's Disease Patients

Abstract Background One of the characteristics of parkinsonian tremor is that its amplitude decreases with movement. Current models suggest an interaction between basal ganglia (BG) and cerebello‐thalamo‐cortical circuits in parkinsonian tremor pathophysiology. Objective We aimed to correlate central oscillation in the BG with electromyographic activity during re‐emergent tremor in order to detect changes in BG oscillatory activity when tremor is attenuated by movement. Methods We performed a prospective, observational study on consecutive parkinsonian patients who underwent deep brain stimulation surgery and presented re‐emergent tremor. Coherence analysis between subthalamic nucleus/globus pallidus internus (STN/GPi) tremorous activity measured by microrecording (MER) and electromyogram (EMG) from flexor and extensor wrist muscles during rest, posture, and re‐emergent tremor pause was performed during surgery. The statistical significance level of the MER‐EMG coherence was determined using surrogate data analysis, and the directionality of information transfer between BG and muscle was performed using entropy transfer analysis. Results We analyzed 148 MERs with tremor‐like activity from 6 patients which were evaluated against the simultaneous EMGs, resulting in 296 correlations. Of these, 26 presented a significant level of coherence at tremor frequency, throughout rest and posture, with a complete EMG stop in between. During the pause, all recordings showed sustained MER peaks at tremor frequency (±1.5 Hz). Information flows preferentially from BG to muscle during rest and posture, with a loss of directionality during the pause. Conclusions Our results suggest that oscillatory activity in STN/GPi functionally linked to tremor sustains firing frequency during re‐emergent tremor pause, thus suggesting no direct role of the BG circuit on tremor attenuation due to voluntary movements. © 2024 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.