The metabolic anatomy of paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration

Abstract

Eleven patients with acquired cerebellar degeneration (10 of whom had paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration {PCD}) were evaluated using neuropsychological tests and ¹⁸F‐fluorodeoxyglucose/positron emission tomography to (1) quantify motor, cognitive, and metabolic abnormalities; (2) determine if characteristic alterations in the regional cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (rCMRGlc) are associated with PCD; and (3) correlate behavioral and metabolic measures of disease severity. Eighteen volunteer subjects served as normal controls. Although some PCD neuropsychological test scores were abnormal, these results could not, in general, be dissociated from the effects of dysarthria and ataxia, rCMRGlc was reduced in patients with PCD (versus normal control subjects) in all regions except the brainstem. Analysis of patient and control rCMRGlc data using a mathematical model of regional metabolic interactions revealed two metabolic pattern descriptors, SSF₁ and SSF₂, which distinguished patients with PCD from normal control subjects; SSF₂, which described a metabolic coupling between cerebellum, cuneus, and posterior temporal, lateral frontal, and paracentral cortex, correlated with quantitative indices of cerebellar dysfunction. Our inability to document substantial intellectual impairment in 7 of 10 patients with PCD contrasts with the 50% incidence of dementia in PCD reported by previous investigators. Widespread reduction in PCD rCMRGlc may result from the loss of cerebellar efferents to thalamus and forebrain structures, a “reverse cerebellar diaschisis”.