Portable stimulator being tested on Parkinson's patients

IMAGE:This is Filip Bergquist from the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg. view more

Credit: University of Gothenburg

Parkinson's disease is a slowly degenerative neurological disease that is expressed as impaired motor control, tremors, stiffness and, in later stages, problems with balance.

The symptoms are caused by a lack of the signal substance dopamine and is traditionally treated with medication. However, balance problems do usually not improve much with pharmacological treatment.

Change brain activity

In earlier experiments on rats, researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy showed that noisy electric stimulation of the balance organs can be used to change the activity of the brain, thereby balancing the effects of dopamine shortage and improve the animals' motor skills and balance.

The researchers have now tested the same method on ten Swedish Parkinson's patients.

Improved balance

The patients were studied in both medicated and unmedicated states. On one day, the patients received an active noise stimulation and on another day inactive treatment, blinded to which day the current was active. The experiments show that the active noise stimulation improved both the patients' balance and the combined symptoms.

"The effect on balance was particularly apparent when the patients were in the unmedicated state, which is very positive," says Associate Professor Filip Bergquist at the Sahlgrenska Academy who led the study.

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Portable stimulator being tested on Parkinson's patients