Electrical stimulation of the dorsal columns of the spinal cord for Parkinson's disease.

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2017-06

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Abstract

Spinal cord stimulation has been used for the treatment of chronic pain for decades. In 2009, our laboratory proposed, based on studies in rodents, that electrical stimulation of the dorsal columns of the spinal cord could become an effective treatment for motor symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease (PD). Since our initial report in rodents and a more recent study in primates, several clinical studies have now described beneficial effects of dorsal column stimulation in parkinsonian patients. In primates, we have shown that dorsal column stimulation activates multiple structures along the somatosensory pathway and desynchronizes the pathological cortico-striatal oscillations responsible for the manifestation of PD symptoms. Based on recent evidence, we argue that neurological disorders such as PD can be broadly classified as diseases emerging from abnormal neuronal timing, leading to pathological brain states, and that the spinal cord could be used as a "channel" to transmit therapeutic electrical signals to disrupt these abnormalities. © 2017 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

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10.1002/mds.27033

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Yadav, Amol P, and Miguel AL Nicolelis (2017). Electrical stimulation of the dorsal columns of the spinal cord for Parkinson's disease. Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society, 32(6). pp. 820–832. 10.1002/mds.27033 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/20281.

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Nicolelis

Miguel Angelo L. Nicolelis

Professor Emeritus of Neurobiology

Miguel Nicolelis, M.D., Ph.D., is the Duke School of Medicine Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience, Duke University Professor of Neurobiology, Biomedical Engineering and Psychology and Neuroscience, and founder of Duke's Center for Neuroengineering. He is the founder and Scientific Director of the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute for Neuroscience of Natal.  Dr. Nicolelis is also founder of the Walk Again Project, an international consortium of scientists and engineers, dedicated to the development of an exoskeleton device to assist severely paralyzed patients in regaining full body mobility.

Dr. Nicolelis has dedicated his career to investigate how the brains of freely behaving animals encode sensory and motor information. As a result of his studies, Dr. Nicolelis was first to propose and demonstrate that animals and human subjects can utilize their electrical brain activity to directly control neuroprosthetic devices via brain-machine interfaces (BMI).

Over the past 25 years, Dr. Nicolelis pioneered and perfected the development of a new neurophysiological method, known today as chronic, multi-site, multi-electrode recordings. Using this approach in a variety of animal species, as well as in intra-operative procedures in human patients, Dr. Nicolelis launched a new field of investigation, which aims at measuring the concurrent activity and interactions of large populations of single neurons throughout the brain. Through his work, Dr. Nicolelis has discovered a series of key physiological principles that govern the operation of mammalian brain circuits.

Dr. Nicolelis pioneering BMI studies have become extremely influential since they offer new potential therapies for patients suffering from severe levels of paralysis, Parkinson’s disease, and epilepsy. Today, numerous neuroscience laboratories in the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America have incorporated Dr. Nicolelis' experimental paradigm to study a variety of mammalian neuronal systems. His research has influenced basic and applied research in computer science, robotics, and biomedical engineering. 


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