Parkinson's disease: New hope

In a resent study by researchers from the university college London.Scientists where able to generate small electrical currents in 14 healthy volunteers using scalp electrodes.The current produced by these electrodes is said to act upon beta waves in the brain leading to more controlled muscular movement (slower movement).The study adds to a growing number of treatments for Parkinson's.This treatment focuses on using electrical therapy to help regress the symptoms of the disease.A treatment like this is still in its early stages and would take a while it becomes commercially available.As always with Parkinson's its not just the treatment you have to consider, diet and exercise come into play as well....Take care all

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Boosting Cortical Activity at Beta-Band Frequencies Slows Movement in Humans Alek Pogosyan1, Louise Doyle Gaynor1, Alexandre Eusebio1 and Peter Brown,

Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK

Summary

Neurons have a striking tendency to engage in oscillatory activities. One important type of oscillatory activity prevalent in the motor system occurs in the beta frequency band, at about 20 Hz. It is manifest during the maintenance of tonic contractions and is suppressed prior to and during voluntary movement [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] and [7]. This and other correlative evidence suggests that beta activity might promote tonic contraction, while impairing motor processing related to new movements [3], [8] and [9]. Hence, bursts of beta activity in the cortex are associated with a strengthening of the motor effects of sensory feedback during tonic contraction and with reductions in the velocity of voluntary movements [9], [10] and [11]. Moreover, beta activity is increased when movement has to be resisted or voluntarily suppressed [7], [12] and [13]. Here we use imperceptible transcranial alternating-current stimulation to entrain cortical activity at 20 Hz in healthy subjects and show that this slows voluntary movement. The present findings are the first direct evidence of causality between any physiological oscillatory brain activity and concurrent motor behavior in the healthy human and help explain how the exaggerated beta activity found in Parkinson's disease can lead to motor slowing in this illness [14].


Journal reference
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