Deep-brain Stimulation May Help Patients with Parkinson’s, Essential Tremor

Deep-brain stimulation (DBS) may stop uncontrollable shaking in patients with Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor by imposing its own rhythm on the brain, report two studies recently published by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the journal Movement Disorders.

DBS uses an electrode that is implanted beneath the skin to send electrical pulses into the brain more than 100 times per second. Although this technology was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) more than 15 years ago, it still is unclear how DBS reduces tremor and other symptoms of movement disorders.

With the help of electroencephalography (EEG), electrodes placed on the scalp, researchers used new techniques to suppress the electrical signal associated with the DBS electrode. This enabled clear, non-invasive EEG measurements of the underlying brain response during high-frequency brain stimulation in humans. For more information, click here to read the full release.