People may tremble when they are nervous, and their hands may tremble even when they are addicted to alcohol.Shakiness is also a phenomenon that becomes noticeable with aging.Diseases of unknown cause that have no symptoms other than tremor are called essential tremor and are found in about 65% of the elderly aged 14 and over.It is a big obstacle depending on the type of job because it cannot be controlled by consciousness and detailed work is difficult.However, the cause of the onset of tremor was unknown.

　This time, the research group created mice that could not produce proteins (class II ARF proteins) involved in the transport of other proteins in the cells, and they always showed tremors in the body.Administration of human-used tremor treatment to these mice reduced the degree of tremor.

　When the activity of the brain of this mouse was examined, the electrical signal (action potential) generated by Purkinje cells was abnormally weakened.Purkinje cells are the only nerve cells that send signals out of the cerebellar cortex and are involved in the realization of smooth movement.

　In addition, Nav1, which is one of the sodium ion channels (proteins that take up sodium ions from outside the cell), was lost at the origin of the axons (neurites) of Purkinje cells.This revealed that the disappearance of sodium ion channels was the cause of the weakened electrical signals of Purkinje cells.

　In the future, we will investigate the cause of the loss of this protein due to aging and aim to develop a radical treatment method.He also wants to elucidate alcoholism and body tremors during tension.

Paper information:[Journal of Neuroscience] Deletion of class II ARFs in mice causes tremor by the Nav1.6 loss in cerebellar Purkinje cell axon initial segments