Parkinson’s brain stimulation breakthough

THOUSANDS of Australians with Parkinson’s disease could soon undergo life-changing surgery to control tremors and stiffness — guided by their own brain signals — while asleep on the operating table for the first time, after a breakthrough finding by Melbourne researchers.

The Bionics Institute team has found the signature of brain activity that ensures they have placed the electrodes in the millimetre-perfect position in the brain — their target the size of the tip of a grain of rice — that will allow Deep Brain Stimulation for the progressive condition to no longer necessarily be performed as “awake” surgery.

The biomarker finding, a major breakthrough for the field of DBS, is also tipped to shorten the trial-and-error process of finding the right settings of electrical stimulation for each patient to best reduce their tremors, stiffness and jerkiness.

After four years of research and three years of testing patients at the Austin Hospital, St Vincent’s and St Vincent’s Private, the finding is also a giant leap forward for the field searching for the “holy grail” treatment for Parkinson’s; a closed-loop system that turns the stimulation on and off in real-time in the patient’s brain in direct response to the patient’s instant needs.

About 100,000 Australiams have the incurable disease, wirth 10 to 20 per cent of them estimated to be candidates for DBS at some point.