Before going any further, remember that Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative pathology which induces severe motor symptoms following the disappearance of certain neurons located deep in the brain and which produce dopamine.
As we know, in the first years of the disease, the symptoms are effectively treated by a drug called levodopa, which compensates for the dopamine deficit. But subsequently, this treatment induces disabling side effects in the form of involuntary movements.
They are generated in the target region of dopamine-releasing neurons, which is a poorly accessible region, and whose stimulation to avoid abnormal movements requires invasive surgical approaches.
These scientists therefore undertook to test an alternative therapeutic route to treat these abnormal movements (dyskinesia) in an animal model (mouse) of Parkinson’s disease*.
How ? By stimulating the Purkinje cells of the cerebellum from the surface of the brain, at the level of the cerebellum, for a few tens of seconds a day. In fact, the latter were then able to suppress these abnormal movements!
Better still, this treatment would seem to normalize the activity of the motor circuits, including at the level of the site of presumed genesis of these dyskinesias, within the basal ganglia. According to these scientists, this treatment could last for several days or even weeks.
These stimulations, which can be administered in a non-invasive way, provide a new access route for the treatment of conditions deep in the brain. The team is now seeking to better understand and optimize these practices to reproduce their beneficial effects in patients.