Clinical Description
The clinical findings of spinocerebellar ataxia type 10 (SCA10) are relatively homogeneous. Ataxia causes progressive disability, and seizures may become life threatening if status epilepticus emerges. Reported age of onset ranges from 12 to 83 years [Matsuura et al 1999, Zu et al 1999, Rasmussen et al 2001, Teive et al 2004, Bushara et al 2013]. To date, more than 300 individuals have been identified with SCA10. The following description of the phenotypic features associated with this condition is based on these reports.
Ataxia. The central feature of the phenotype is slowly progressive cerebellar ataxia that usually starts as poor balance and unsteady gait.
The gait ataxia gradually worsens, leading to an increasing number of falls and necessitating use of a cane, walker, and eventually wheelchair. In the advanced stage, the affected individual is unable to stand or sit without support.
Upper-limb coordination begins to deteriorate within a few years after the onset of gait ataxia. Handwriting and other fine motor tasks, such as buttoning, are the first to be impaired, followed by increasing difficulties in daily activities such as feeding, dressing, and personal hygiene.
Scanning dysarthria, a type of slurred speech typically seen in cerebellar ataxia, appears within a few years after the onset of gait ataxia. Scanning speech is the result of impaired coordination of the movements of the vocal cords, tongue, palate, cheeks, and lips. Impaired coordination of the diaphragm and other respiratory muscles contributes to the speech impairment.
Poor coordination of tongue, throat, and mouth muscles causes dysphagia in later stages of the disease, often leading to life-threatening aspiration pneumonia.
Most individuals develop abnormal tracking eye movements: fragmented ocular pursuit, ocular dysmetria, and occasionally ocular flutter. Impaired ocular movements are attributable to cerebellar dysfunction. Some individuals with relatively severe ataxia show coarse gaze-induced nystagmus. Saccade velocity is normal.
Ataxia may be induced by small amounts of alcohol [Teive et al 2011c], by treatment with glucocorticosteroids [Moro et al 2013], or during pregnancy and puerperium [Teive et al 2011a].
Intention tremor was identified only in women from one of the 16 families with SCA10 reported in a Brazilian series [Domingues et al 2019].
Seizures. In most individuals, seizures are noted after the onset of gait ataxia.
Recurrent seizures have been reported in 20%-100% of affected individuals [Matsuura et al 1999, Zu et al 1999, Rasmussen et al 2001]. Generalized motor seizures are most common, but complex partial seizures occur. An attack of complex partial seizures may occasionally be followed by a generalized motor seizure, suggesting secondary generalization of focal seizure activity. Seizure characteristics do not appear to change with age.
Without treatment, generalized motor seizures may occur daily and complex partial seizures may occur up to several times a day. Poorly treated seizures may result in life-threatening status epilepticus and/or death [Grewal et al 2002].
Seizures were found to occur in six of 91 Brazilians (6.6%) with SCA10 from the Parana/Santa Catarina region, and those with seizures had earlier age at onset [Domingues et al 2019]; this is in contrast to a higher incidence of epilepsy in individuals of Mexican ancestry (60%) [Alonso et al 2006] and Brazilians from other regions (64.7%) [de Castilhos et al 2014].
Other. While overt progressive dementia is not observed, some individuals with SCA10 exhibit mild cognitive dysfunction (IQ ~70) as well as mood disorders.
Mild pyramidal signs (either hyperreflexia, Babinski sign, or both), behavioral disturbances (including psychosis, paranoid schizophrenia), dystonia, parkinsonism, peripheral neuropathy, central auditory processing, and sleep disorders have been variably seen [Rasmussen et al 2001, Gatto et al 2007, Wexler & Fogel 2011, Trikamji et al 2015, Zeigelboim et al 2015, Moro et al 2017, Schüle et al 2017, London et al 2018, Nascimento et al 2019].
Extraneural abnormalities including hepatic failure, anemia, and/or thrombocytopenia have been recorded in one family [Rasmussen et al 2001].
Low IQ, behavioral disturbances, and extraneural abnormalities have not been found in Brazilians with SCA10, although mild or equivocal pyramidal tract signs and rare sensory polyneuropathy were noted [Teive et al 2004, Alonso et al 2006]. Overall, Brazilians with SCA10 show a milder neurologic phenotype with fewer extracerebellar features than individuals of Mexican ancestry.