Personalised brain stimulation could reduce Parkinson’s symptoms – study
The treatment works with medications that Parkinson’s patients take to manage their symptoms.
A brain implant can help people with Parkinson’s disease deal with movement problems during the day and insomnia at night, new research suggests.
The study found that the device, which is controlled by brain activity, could provide personalised continual and improved treatment for the symptoms in some people with the condition.
When the implant detects changes in symptoms from brain activity, it releases pulses of electricity.
The treatment works with medications that Parkinson’s patients take to manage their symptoms, giving less stimulation when the drug is active, and more stimulation as the drug wears off, to prevent stiffness.
Megan Frankowski, programme director for the USA’s National Institutes of Health’s Brain Initiative, which helped fund this project, said: “This study marks a big step forward towards developing a DBS (deep brain stimulation) system that adapts to what the individual patient needs at a given time.”
Professor Philip Starr, from the University of California, San Francisco, said: “This is the future of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease.”
