{"id":38289,"date":"2026-06-23T08:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T02:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=38289"},"modified":"2026-06-23T08:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T02:40:10","slug":"a-cautionary-tale-study-challenges-assumption-about-brain-activity-in-movement-disorders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/a-cautionary-tale-study-challenges-assumption-about-brain-activity-in-movement-disorders\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A cautionary tale’: Study challenges assumption about brain activity in movement disorders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Research finds that activity in easily measured cerebellar cells may not reliably predict signals in deeper brain regions linked to dystonia, ataxia, and tremor<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A new finding by a Virginia Tech neuroscientist at the  Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC<\/a> is challenging the way investigators study chronic neurological disorders such as dystonia, ataxia, and tremor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All three disorders, which cause involuntary movements such as painful contortions, awkward postures, and shaking, stem from dysfunction in the brain\u2019s cerebellum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neuroscientists often focus on activity between two cell types as both a cause and a target for treating these diseases. In the cerebellum, Purkinje cells are known to inhibit activity in cells located in the deep cerebellar nuclei. Neuroscientists have assumed that knowing what\u2019s happening with Purkinje cells indicates what\u2019s going on with the deep nuclei cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a new study by\u00a0Meike van der Heijden\u00a0challenges that assumption. The finding, published in the\u00a0Journal of Physiology<\/em>,<\/a>\u00a0suggests that despite their anatomical connection, the activity of one cell type is a poor biomarker for understanding the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe see that there’s not a clear linear relationship between activity in the Purkinje cells and in the deep nuclei cells. So there\u2019s very limited predictive power in monitoring one to understand what\u2019s going on in the other,\u201d said Van der Heijden, assistant professor at the institute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The finding is important to both understanding and treating cerebellar movement disorders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPurkinje and cerebellar deep nuclei cell activity is disrupted in a disease state, and a better understanding of the relationship between these neuron types will ultimately help optimize treatments for diseases such as dystonia, ataxia, and tremor,\u201d said Alyssa Lyon, a doctoral candidate in Virginia Tech\u2019s Translational Biology, Medicine, and Health Graduate Program<\/a> and the paper\u2019s first author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purkinje cells are found in the outer layer of the cerebellum, making their activity easier to measure than deep nuclei cells, which are found at greater depths from the surface within the brain. Neuroscientists have considered the more accessible Purkinje cells a reliable biomarker for activity in the deep nuclei cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, the Purkinje cells inhibit the deep nuclei cells. When Purkinje cells are more active, deep nuclei cells should be less active, and the reverse should also be true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lab team studied a database of electrophysiology recordings from pre-clinical models for cerebellar diseases and found no significant correlation between activity in the two cell types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe suggest that if you want to know how the cerebellum is behaving in a disease state, you have to look at the deep nuclei neurons, not just the Purkinje cells,\u201d said Van der Heijden, who also holds an appointment in Virginia Tech\u2019s School of Neuroscience<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, she added, regulating the Purkinje cells as a treatment and expecting a change in the deep nuclei cells is not advised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a cautionary tale for understanding cerebellar activity in disease, but also for treating these challenging diseases,\u201d Van der Heijden said. \u201cWe need to be very careful in making assumptions and to actually do experiments to test our hypotheses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new finding by a Virginia Tech\u00a0neuroscientist at the \u00a0Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC\u00a0is challenging the way investigators study chronic neurological disorders such as dystonia, ataxia, and tremor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9.webp",700,466,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9-200x200.webp",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9-675x449.webp",675,449,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9.webp",700,466,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9.webp",700,466,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9.webp",700,466,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9.webp",700,466,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9.webp",700,466,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9.webp",700,466,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9-600x466.webp",600,466,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9-600x466.webp",600,466,true],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9.webp",700,466,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9-550x360.webp",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9-95x65.webp",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9-640x466.webp",640,466,true],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9-96x96.webp",96,96,true],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/image-9-150x100.webp",150,100,true]},"author_info":{"info":["RevoScience"]},"category_info":"Health<\/a>","tag_info":"Health","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38289"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38291,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38289\/revisions\/38291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}