PD - Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) affects \~1% of people over 60 years old, is highly disabling and represents a large economic burden. While dopaminergic medications effectively treat motor symptoms early in the disease, most patients develop complications, including motor fluctuations and dyskinesias, which can be partially managed by deep brain stimulation (DBS). This surgical therapy consists of delivering continuous electrical stimulation through electrodes permanently implanted in basal ganglia nuclei, with a pulse generator and battery unit implanted in the chest. However, conventional DBS therapy is delivered with constant stimulation parameters, referred to as constant deep brain stimulation (cDBS), that are unresponsive to patient activities or to variations in the severity of symptoms during daily life. This leaves many patients under- or over-stimulated during parts of the day. To address the shortcomings of cDBS, adaptive DBS (aDBS) uses real-time detection of neural signals to automatically adjust stimulation amplitude or other parameters in response to patients' dynamic clinical needs. aDBS was approved by the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) for clinical treatment of PD in the Percept PC and RC (Medtronic) device in February 2025. Fully leveraging this therapy in the real world is limited by technical challenges, in particular the fact that: while the investigators developed a consistent pipeline for implementing aDBS, there were several critical control parameters that strongly influenced algorithm performance and required prolonged trial-and-error based testing, to achieve successful control. In this new study, the investigators seek to significantly extend this work and address the major barriers to widespread, easy adoption of aDBS by groups without specialized knowledge of neurophysiology or feedback control. Here the investigators aim to test an automated, data-driven pipeline for the recommendation of the adaptive control parameters.

The purpose of this study is to test a new way to treat Parkinson's disease (PD). Subjects will be implanted with deep brain stimulator (DBS) devices and electrodes placed under the scalp. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Is there a less invasive method to collect useful brain signals? Find out if these brain signals can be related to movement and/or sleep symptoms. * How to use these brain signals to tailor adaptive deep brain stimulation settings for movement and/or sleep symptoms Researchers will compare study derived adaptive DBS settings to subject's clinically programmed continuous DBS settings to see which is better at treating patients PD symptoms.

This study aims to test whether patients with Parkinson's disease can safely and effectively use a home-based exercise program guided by videos. Participants will follow video instructions for exercises at home while their movements are monitored by a camera, which provides real-time feedback. The study will check how well participants complete the exercises, their satisfaction with the program, and any changes in clinical function. The goal is to see if this type of home exercise can help patients increase their activity levels without significant side effects.

The primary objective of this prospective, multicenter, double-blind, randomized, crossover clinical trial is to evaluate whether Subthalamic Nucleus-Deep Brain Stimulation (STN-DBS) is more effective than Globus Pallidus Internus-Deep Brain Stimulation (GPi-DBS) in improving motor symptoms of patients with Parkinson's disease at 90 days post-treatment.

To evaluate the safety and efficacy of transplantation of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived dopaminergic progenitors, CT1-DAP001, into the corpus striatum in patients with Parkinson's disease

To develop a reliable and accurate clinician-reported outcome (ClinRO) measure (against a new and precise definition) and patient reported outcome (PRO) for use by clinicians and researchers to quantify the severity of Freezing of Gait (FOG).

Gait initiation (GI) difficulty is a common problem in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD), often linked to impaired anticipatory postural adjustments (APA). Currently, there are no targeted rehabilitation programs designed specifically for GI-related APA in PD patients. Research has shown that while motor learning deficits are common in PD, explicit learning is better preserved than implicit learning. Therefore, a GI-related APA training system using an explicit learning model could be particularly effective for this population. During motor learning, long-term potentiation (LTP) increases the excitability of the primary motor cortex. Paired associative stimulation (PAS) has been demonstrated to induce LTP-like changes in the motor cortex, making it a potential priming method to enhance motor learning. However, the priming effect of PAS targeted at leg muscles and the motor cortex on motor learning related to GI-APA has not been previously studied. The objectives of this study are: 1. To investigate the effects of explicit and implicit training on GI-related APA. 2. To evaluate the priming effect of PAS on GI-related APA training and the associated plasticity changes in the motor cortex.

Spasticity and rigidity are common symptoms of central nervous system injuries, such as spinal cord injury and Parkinson's disease, and result in distinct patterns of increased resistance during passive joint movements. Spasticity is characterized by a velocity-dependent increase in stretch reflexes, accompanied by exaggerated tendon responses, while rigidity is marked by consistent resistance throughout the range of motion, traditionally considered independent of stretch velocity. However, recent studies suggest that rigidity may also be influenced by stretch velocity. This study aims to investigate muscle tone by examining spasticity, rigidity, and normal muscle function through neural and biomechanical changes. Standard clinical tools, such as the Modified Ashworth Scale and Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, along with additional assessments like the Myoton and Post-Activation Depression (PAD), will be employed.

Gait disorders in Parkinson's disease (PD), particularly in complex environments or under stress, present challenges for accurate evaluation and classification, such as in cases of freezing of gait. Traditional clinical and laboratory settings often fail to replicate the complexity needed for precise classification, making effective rehabilitation difficult. This study aims to address these challenges by developing an augmented reality (AR)-based environment that mimics real-world stressors and dynamically adapts to the patient's condition. The AR system is designed to facilitate individualized gait training and rehabilitation by modifying environmental difficulty based on real-time feedback from gait performance and stress levels. Building on Gentile's taxonomy of tasks, the investigators have incorporated PD-specific factors, such as cognitive dual tasks, into our environment classification system. Preliminary results suggest that this system effectively elicits varying gait and heart rate variability (HRV) responses, indicating different stress levels. This trial will further test the AR environment's ability to classify patients based on their responses to complex, interactive environments, while also investigating the effects of adaptive AR-based gait training on both gait and stress management in individuals with PD.

Under regional anesthesia, subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) has proven to be an effective therapeutic approach for improving motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease. However, a significant portion of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients is unable to cooperate with the surgery, necessitating the use of awake sedation. Nevertheless, the administration of anesthetic drugs often impacts the electrical signals recorded by microelectrodes to varying degrees. This study is designed as a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, two-arm investigation. PD patients scheduled for bilateral STN-DBS surgery will be randomly assigned to either the Dexmedetomidine group or the Dexmedetomidine combined with Esketamine group. The differences in neural activity between the two groups will be assessed using the normalized root mean square (NRMS) method. The primary outcome measure is NRMS, while secondary outcome measures include differences in beta oscillation power spectrum analysis, postoperative delirium incidence, postoperative changes in sleep disturbances, postoperative depression, anxiety status, and occurrence of adverse events.

Subthalamic nucleus (STN)-deep brain stimulation (DBS) under general anesthesia has been applied to PD patients who cannot tolerate awake surgery, but general anesthesia will affect the electrical signal in microelectrode recording (MER) to some degree. This study is a prospective randomized controlled, noninferiority study, open label, endpoint outcome evaluator blinded, two-arm study. Parkinson's disease patients undergoing STN-DBS are randomly divided into a conscious sedation group (dexmedetomidine) and a general anesthesia group (desflurane). Normalized root mean square (NRMS) is used to compare the difference of neuronal activity between the two groups. The primary outcome is the percentage of high NRMS recorded by the MER signal (with the average NRMS recorded by MER after entering the STN greater than 2.0). The secondary outcomes are the NRMS, length of the STN, number of MER tracks, and differences in clinical outcomes 6 months after the operation.

Propofol is a short-acting general anesthetic drug commonly used in clinical practice, with rapid clinical onset of action, amnesic, anxiolytic, antiepileptic, and muscle relaxant effects. The lack of natural antioxidants in patients with Parkinson's disease and propofol's ability to protect the brain by inhibiting oxidative stress, its pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties make propofol a suitable anesthetic drug for functional stereotactic surgery in patients with Parkinson's disease. However, changes in brain functional status during propofol anesthesia in Parkinson's patients are unknown. There is a lack of data from extensive clinical studies to support the need for propofol dosing during induction of anesthesia compared with non-Parkinson patients. This study is a prospective cohort study designed to compare the differences in propofol dosing requirements during induction of propofol anesthesia in patients with PD versus non-PD and to monitor the characteristics of altered brain functional status such as EEG and cerebral blood flow autoregulation capacity in PD versus non-PD patients during the perioperative period.