Pioneering neural recordings in patients with Parkinson’s disease lays the groundwork for personalized brain stimulation to treat Parkinson’s and other neurological disorders.
In a study published May 3rd in Nature Biotechnology, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences researchers implanted novel neurostimulation devices that monitor brain activity for many months, with and without deep brain stimulation (DBS) therapy. Pairing the brain recordings with wearable monitors of movement, they identified patterns of brain activity corresponding to specific movement abnormalities associated with Parkinson’s. Their research provides the first evidence, during normal activities of daily living, for a long-held hypothesis that Parkinson’s symptoms are related to erratic brain wave patterns, and demonstrate how DBS restores order to patient brain waves.
«We can record hundreds of hours of brain wave activity wirelessly as patients go about normal activities,» said Philip Starr, MD, PhD, the Dolores Cakebread Professor of Neurological Surgery at UCSF and senior author of the study. «It allows us, really for the first time, to understand the brain activity behind specific neurological problems as they occur in the real world.»
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative neurological disorder that causes slow movement (bradykinesia), trouble walking, and tremors, as well as symptoms unrelated to movement. According to the Parkinson’s Foundation, some 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease every year. The exact cause of Parkinson’s is not known, but all patients show decreased levels of dopamine — a neurotransmitter that regulates motivation in the brain.
It’s long been suspected that erratic brain wave patterns also play a role in triggering Parkinson’s symptoms. Previous research in monitoring brain wave activity of Parkinson’s patients has been limited to short periods in clinical settings. This greatly limits the amount of data available for analysis — providing a limited glimpse of patient brain activity which cycles and changes throughout the day.
Starr and study lead author Ro’ee Gilron, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Neurological Surgery, sought to get a more complete picture. They implanted small sensors that measure electrical activity into the subthalamus and motor cortex brain areas of five patients with Parkinson’s disease. These sensors were connected to pulse generators enabled to sense brain activity. This allowed for continuous recording of brain activity while patients went about their daily routine.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of California — San Francisco. Original written by Alan Toth. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.