title: Cognitive deficits in essential tremor consistent with frontosubcortical dysfunction.
abstract: Essential tremor (ET) is increasingly thought to involve a heterogeneous group of patients, with some also exhibiting symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD), including cognitive deficits. The goal of this study was to utilize a broad battery of neuropsychological measures to compare the cognitive function of 33 ET patients with that of 33 matched PD patients and 21 normal controls. Results indicated that the ET group performed significantly worse than controls across multiple cognitive domains, but performed remarkably similar to PD patients, consistent with frontosubcortical dysfunction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Loyola College in Maryland, Baltimore, MD 21210-2699, USA. cihigginson@loyola.edu
authors.forename: Christopher I
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Higginson
authors.forename: Vicki L
authors.initials: VL
authors.lastname: Wheelock
authors.forename: Dawn
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Levine
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: King
authors.forename: Conrad T E
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Pappas
authors.forename: Karen A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Sigvardt
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D020329:Essential Tremor / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests