Table 1.

Problems with the olivary model of essential tremor

1	The model is purely conjectural and there is no evidence that the hypothesized processes are occurring in the human disease ET.
2	Pacemakers exist in numerous locations in the central nervous system (locus ceruleus, dorsal raphe nucleus, thalamus, and the cerebellum). Thus, olivary pacemakers are not unique, and there has been no attempt to explain why these rather than the numerous other pacemakers are posited to be patho-mechanistically relevant in ET.
3	The harmaline model is an animal toxin model of tremor rather than a model of the human disease, ET, which occurs in nature. Action tremor is a non- specific neurological sign, and is not the equivalent of the human disease ET. Also, harmaline-exposed animals develop an acute tremor that resolves after a few hours - it is a model of acute action tremor rather than chronic action tremor.