Apart from symptoms such as slow and/or stiff movements, many patients with Parkinson’s disease can also have difficulties with gait. Currently, continuous deep brain stimulation is an effective treatment for many symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, but for gait, the effect is less consistent and could even make it worse. Previous work reported that electrical waves deep in the brain varied in time with stepping, alternating between left and right sides, and this alternating effect was stronger with more regular stepping in patients with less gait difficulties. Furthermore, a type of brain stimulation that mimics this natural alternating activity could modify stepping in patients with Parkinson’s disease. These together lead to the hypothesis of this project: facilitating this alternating pattern could improve gait. I will be testing this hypothesis through two interventions, including Gait-phase dependent adaptive deep brain stimulation, and neurofeedback training. The overall goal of this project is to better understand the relationship between the observed brain patterns and gait, as well as to improve therapy for gait difficulties.

Gait-phase dependent adaptive deep brain stimulation (A) and neurofeedback training (B) for facilitating gait.

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