Jolt of progress
Neurologist’s research advances new treatment for Parkinson’s disease
A new, smarter version of deep brain stimulation for treating Parkinson’s disease has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Helen Bronte-Stewart, MD, a professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford Medicine, led final large-scale testing of the new approach, called adaptive deep-brain stimulation, or aDBS.
In DBS and aDBS, electrodes connected to thin wires are implanted into the brain. Like a cardiac pacemaker that responds to the rhythms of the heart, aDBS uses a person’s individual brain signals to control the electric pulses it delivers, making it more personalized, precise and efficient than older DBS methods.
“Until recently, these stimulation devices delivered a one-size-fits-all train of electric pulses to the brain around the clock,” said Bronte-Stewart, the John E. Cahill Family Professor. “They have helped some people but are a pretty blunt tool for trying to correct the brain arrhythmias associated with Parkinson’s. Now, we have this adaptive technology that listens to brain activity and adjusts stimulation accordingly.”
Her lab has conducted experiments on aDBS since 2015.
“The FDA approval is exciting because it means that everyone with Parkinson’s who has a compatible DBS device in the U.S. could use aDBS,” she said.
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