Public Thesis defense - ICTEAM

Study of the fingerprint of Essential Tremor in motor control and its links on cerebellar-cortical connectivity by Flo Blondiaux

The origin of one of the most common movement disorder, Essential Tremor (ET), remains poorly understood. Although a cerebellar origin is frequently suggested, the specific mechanisms underlying the generation of oscillations in ET are unclear. This thesis uses an experimental approach to better elucidate the impact of ET on motor control. We show that motor adaptation is impaired in ET, with preserved anticipation of perturbations but suboptimal online control of the movements leading to these adaptation deficits. A postural perturbation task confirmed these results, revealing feedback control deficits in ET patients. Knowing that oscillations can arise from erroneous compensation for feedback delays in systems, we investigated whether ET could stem from such errors. Using a computational model, we replicated the experimental results of ET patients by introducing errors in the delay compensation step, supporting the hypothesis that ET originates from erroneous sensory delay compensation, a function linked to the cerebellum. Additionally, resting-state functional MRI showed a reduction in functional connectivity within the cerebello-thalamo-cortical pathway in ET participants, which correlated with tremor severity. We also observed a correlation between thalamic subnuclei atrophy and tremor severity. These findings collectively support the involvement of the cerebellum and its projections in the genesis of tremor in ET. 

Jury members:

Prof. Frédéric Crevecoeur (UCLouvain), supervisor

Prof. Bernard Hanseeuw (UCLouvain), supervisor

Prof. Philippe Lefèvre (UCLouvain), chairperson

Dr. Laurence Dricot (UCLouvain), secretary

Prof. Gilles Vannuscorps (UCLouvain)

Prof. Juan Alvaro Gallego (Imperial College London, UK)

Prof. Tarkeshwar Singh (PennState, USA)

Pay attention:

The public defense of Flo Blondiaux scheduled for Wednesday September 18 at 06:00 p.m. will also take place in the form of a video conference.

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