WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) – A new research suggests that a brain implant could help people with Parkinson’s disease by providing personalized care.
The device uses AI to monitor a patient’s brain activity to detect movement problems during the day and insomnia at night. If it detects changes, it intervenes by releasing pulses of electricity called deep brain stimulation or DBS.
The study, published in the journal Nature, found that implant in four people, involved in an early-stage clinical trial, reduced their most bothersome symptoms of Parkinson’s disease by 50 percent.
‘This device can sense brain activity and provide stimulation at the same time. Our job was to create the algorithms for the software that runs on this device,’ said Dr Carina Oehrn from the University of California, San Francisco, the lead author of the research.
The customized algorithms continuously monitored the participants’ brain signals, and the electrical stimulation automatically adjusted in response to their needs.
‘This is the future of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease,’ said senior researcher Dr. Philip Starr, co-director of the University of California, San Francisco, Movement Disorders and Neuromodulation Clinic.
‘There’s been a great deal of interest in improving DBS therapy by making it adaptive and self-regulating, but it’s only been recently that the right tools and methods have been available to allow people to use this long-term in their homes,’ Starr added.
However, the researchers emphasized that medications are also required alongside the new approach.
‘Medications are needed often to support mood as well as movement in Parkinson’s disease, and so shouldn’t be stopped completely,’ said Dr Simon Little, another author of the study.
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