No specific cause is found for most people who experience cerebellar ataxia for the first time in adulthood. Many patients report no occurrence of ataxia in their immediate family. However, negative family history of ataxia does not rule out inherited ataxias. For example, a parent may have been adopted, or by chance, the disease has not manifested itself in successive generations if it is autosomal recessive (Friedreich’s ataxia, as a case in point, is known to skip generations.)
It is estimated that approximately 5 percent of people with ataxia do have inherited ataxia despite negative family history. Some inherited ataxias do begin later in a person’s life. Some also have decreased penetrance, which means that family members who carry the faulty genes may not develop symptoms of ataxia during their lifetime.
The remaining patients who do not have inherited ataxias have sporadic ataxia—that is, an isolated disease with no history of the ataxia in previous generations. Sporadic ataxias may result from a new abnormality of the gene (also called a “de novo” mutation) or as a result of an underlying disease.
The following are common causes for sporadic ataxia:
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