Parkinson's electrode therapy treatment: tweaking the implant placement
One of the most significant breakthroughs in neural stimulation technology has come in the form of neurally-implanted electrodes which regulate dopamine supply for Parkinson's patients. But what if your implant doesn't deliver as expected? A recent study shows that tweaking the location of the implant may improve performance. From the cutting edge of neural implant tech:
All patients except for one displayed improvement after the second surgery. When they were not on medication, treatment improved the patient’s motor scores by 26.7 percent following the first operation and 59.4 percent following the second procedure. Their dose of levodopa, a medication treating Parkinson’s disease, decreased from 1,202 milligrams to 534 milligrams. The average distance between the electrodes and the target point of stimulation—a location in the subthalamic nucleus identified by evaluating electrode placement in patients whose surgery was successful—decreased from 5.4 to 2 millimeters. The shorter this distance, the greater the patient’s improvement in motor scores.
I have my own personal theories about how these devices might aid neural synchrony in complex logic tasks, but I don't want to get all "Lawnmower Man" on you right now.
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