Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Analysis of amplitude and frequency variations of essential and Parkinsonian tremors

  • Published:
Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Variations in the amplitude and period of essential and Parkinsonian tremors were studied. It was found that the variations in frequency (or period) were mostly similar to the white noise, with the standard deviation typically less than 10% of the mean, whereas the variations in amplitude were much larger, with standard deviations greater than 30% of the mean, and so could not be effectively smoothed by running means. It is conjectured that variations in frequency reflect the stable nature of the neural network that generates the rhythmicity responsible for the tremor. The variations in amplitude, however, reflect more the fluctuations in the firing of individual neurons in the network. It is further discussed that the oscillator behind pathological tremor has a stochastic nature and can be characterised as a diffusional process. The latter suggests that it is sometimes possible for tremors to be described as chaotic processes on certain scales in phase space. It is further discussed how the stochastic nature of tremors determines the lack of correlation between different tremulous parts of the body.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Bak, P. (1996) ‘How nature works: the science of self-organized criticality’, (Copernicus, New York, 1996)

    Google Scholar 

  • Buckwell, D., andGresty, M. A. (1995): ‘Analysis of tremor waveform’, inFindley, L. J., andKoller, W. C. (Eds.): ‘Handbook of tremor disorders’ (Marcel Dekker, New York, 1995), pp. 145–164

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Y., Ding, M., andKelso, J. A. S. (1997): ‘Long memory processes (1/ftype) in human coordination’,Phys. Rev. Lett.,79, p. 4501

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, J. J., andDe Luca, C. J. (1994): ‘Random walking during quiet standing’,Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, p. 764

    Google Scholar 

  • Deuschl, G., Bain, P., andBrin, M. (1998): ‘Consensus statement of the Movement Disorder Society on tremor’,Mov. Disord.,13, pp. 2–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elble, R. J., Higgins, C., Leffler, K., andHughes, L. (1994): ‘Factors influencing the amplitude and frequency of essential tremor’,Mov. Disord.,9, pp. 589–596

    Google Scholar 

  • Gao, J. B., Hwang, S. K., andLiu, J. M. (1999a): ‘When can noise induce chaos?’,Phys. Rev. Lett.,82, pp. 1132–1135

    Google Scholar 

  • Gao, J. B., Chen, C. C., Hwang, S. K., andLiu, J. M. (1999b): ‘Noise-induced chaos’,Int. J. Mod. Phys. B,13, pp. 3283–3305

    Google Scholar 

  • Gao, J. B., andTung, W. W. (2002): ‘Pathological tremors as diffusional processes’,Biol. Cybern.,86, pp. 263–270

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gao, J. B., Merk, I., Tung, W. W., Billock, V., White, K. D., Harris, J. G., andRoychowdhury, V. P. (2003): ‘Inertia and memory in ambiguous visual perception’,Proc. Royal Soc. London Series B (in press)

  • Gilden, D. L., Thornton, T., andMallon, M. W. (1995): ‘1/f noise in human cognition’,Science,267, p. 1837

    Google Scholar 

  • Gresty, M., andBuckwell, D. (1990): ‘Spectral analysis of tremor-understanding the results’,J. Neurol. Neurosur. Psych.,53, pp. 976–981

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunker, C. J., andAbbs, J. H. (1990): ‘Uniform frequency of Parkinsonian resting tremor in the lips, jaw, tongue, and index finger’,Mov. Disord.,5, pp. 71–77

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hurtado, J. M., Gray, C. M., Tamas, L. B., andSigvardt, K. A. (1999): ‘Dynamics of tremor-related oscillations in the human globus pallidus: A single case study’,Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA,96, pp. 1674–1679

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaulakys, B., andMeskauskas, T. (1998): ‘Modeling 1/f noise’,Phys. Rev. E,58, pp. 7013–7019

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li, W., andKaneko, K. (1992): ‘Long-range correlation and partial 1/f-alpha spectrum in a non-coding DNA sequence’,Europhys. Lett.,17, pp. 655–660

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandelbrot, B. B. (1982):The fractal geometry of nature (Freeman, San Francisco, 1982)

    Google Scholar 

  • Peng, C.-K., Buldyrev, S. V., Goldberger, A. L., Havlin, S., Sciortino, F., Simons, M., andStanley, H. E. (1992): ‘Long-range correlations in nucleotide sequences’,Nature,356, pp. 168–170

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Press, W. H. (1978): ‘Flicker noises in astronomy and elsewhere’,Comm. Astrophys.,7, pp. 103–119

    Google Scholar 

  • Raethjen, J., Lindemann, M., Schmaljohann, H., Wenzelburger, R., Pfister, G., andDeuschl, G. (2000): ‘Multiple oscillators are causing Parkinsonian and essential tremor’,Mov. Disord.,15, pp. 84–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Timmer, J., Haussler, S., Lauk, M., andLucking, C. H. (2000): ‘Pathological tremors: deterministic chaos or nonlinear stochastic oscillators?’,Chaos,10, pp. 278–288

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Voss, R. (1992): ‘Evolution of long-range fractal correlations and 1/fnoise in DNA base sequences’,Phys. Rev. Lett.,68, pp. 3805–3808

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Florida, USA

    J. B. Gao

Authors
  1. J. B. Gao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. B. Gao.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Gao, J.B. Analysis of amplitude and frequency variations of essential and Parkinsonian tremors. Med. Biol. Eng. Comput. 42, 345–349 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02344710

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02344710

Keywords

Search

Navigation