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BRAIN Initiative

Our team (Walker, PI) was awarded a grant by the National Institutes of Health through The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative.

In this grant – Noninvasive Biomarkers to Advance Emerging DBS Electrode Technologies in Parkinson's Disease – we are investigating a new DBS technology made by Boston Scientific that could provide greater improvement in motor symptoms and quality of life than routine care.This allows greater freedom to adjust a patient’s stimulator settings. Although not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration of the United States, this new DBS system has been approved and in clinical use in Europe since 2015.

The primary goal of this study is to compare DBS with and without current steering to find out which approach better improves motor symptoms and quality of life in patients with Parkinson’s disease. The study also aims to develop new methods that use brain waves as a roadmap to identify the best stimulator settings more rapidly and efficiently than would otherwise be possible.

Our overall goal is to pioneer new DBS technology to optimize improvement in motor symptoms and quality of life in patients with Parkinson’s disease.