Genetics of tremor

Abstract

Tremor is asymptom of many diseases and can constitute adisease of its own: essential tremor. The genetics of essential tremor and differential diagnosis of monogenic diseases with the symptom tremor. Literature search and search of clinical genetics databases, e.g. OMIM, GeneReviews, MDSGene and the German Neurological Society (DGN) guidelines. The genetics of essential tremor remain unresolved in spite of large, adequately powered studies. Tremor is asymptom of differential diagnostic value in many movement disorders. Aslight tremor might have been missed or not reported in many descriptions of movement disorders. Progress in the genetics of essential tremor probably requires amore detailed phenotyping allowing stratification into phenotypically defined subgroups. Tremor should always be included in the examination and description of movement disorders even if tremor is not acardinal symptom. Tremor might be helpful in the differential diagnosis of hereditary dystonia, hereditary ataxia, spastic paraplegia and other movement disorders.