Serum Alpha Synuclein Autoantibodies in patients with Essential Tremor

Abstract Essential tremor (ET) is one of the most common neurological disorders. However, there’s no definite ET biomarker and the diagnosis depends on its clinical presentation. Therefore, ET can be easily misdiagnosed with other diseases especially parkinson’s disease (PD). PD, being one of a group of neurodegenerative diseases calked synucleinopathies, can be difficult to differentiate from ET both in the early stages of these diseases and as they progress, since various types of tremors (such as rest, postural, kinetic, and intention tremors) can be observed in both conditions. We aimed to investigate the relation between ET and alpha synuclein (aSyn) protein in patients with ET and healthy controls. We enrolled 32 patients with ET and 32 age and sex matched controls, aiming to investigate serum level of aSyn protein and its autoantibodies. Additionally, we also investigated neuropsychiatric, non-motor symptoms (NMS), and quality of life (QoL) among two groups. The study found that serum aSyn levels in healthy controls are significantly higher than those in ET cases, in the other hand, serum aSyn autoantibodies shows no significant difference between the two groups. Furthermore, we found that patients with ET had more cognitive impairment, higher depression and anxiety, higher frequency of NMS, and lower quality of life than healthy controls. Conclusion: serum aSyn level can differentiate between patients with ET and healthy controls while serum aSyn autoantibodies cannot differentiate between the two groups.