Electrophysiological Evidence for Functional (Psychogenic) Essential Palatal Tremor

Background: There is little published work describing the electrophysiological characteristics of essential palatal tremor, a condition now believed by many to be a functional (psychogenic) movement disorder.

Case Report: Here we combine electroencephalography and electromyography with time-locked video recordings to document two cases of essential palatal tremor in which a definitive diagnosis is achieved using these electrophysiological tools.

Discussion: We believe that sharing how these objective tools can be used to diagnose a functional movement disorder, as well as providing more published evidence to support the functional origin of essential palatal myoclonus, will help to diagnose this condition in the future.