Magnetic pulses have helped patients with Parkinson’s disease

Previously, doctors believed that the cause of the disease lies solely in disorders of the motor centers of the brain (basal ganglia). A new study has shown that the problem is much broader. The culprit turned out to be a network called SCAN. It’s a system that connects our thoughts, action plans, and actual body movements.

In a healthy person, this network works in a balanced way. Patients with Parkinson’s disease have been found to be “hyperconnected” — the SCAN network communicates too actively and chaotically with the subcortex, the area of the brain responsible for emotions and memory. Due to this excess of signals, coordination of movements is disrupted, and problems with sleep and thinking appear.

After realizing where the glitch was, the scientists decided to try to fix it in a non-invasive way. They used transcranial magnetic stimulation. This is a method in which a device is placed on the patient’s head that sends magnetic impulses through the skull to the desired point in the brain.

The SCAN zone became the target. Doctors calmed her activity, trying to remove unnecessary connections. The results of the clinical trial were convincing. In the group of patients who were stimulated with this particular new zone, significant improvement occurred in 56% of cases. For comparison, when exposed to neighboring areas of the brain, the effect was only in 22% of people.

This discovery changes the approach to therapy. Nowadays, many patients have to have electrodes implanted deep into the brain to relieve their condition — this is a difficult and dangerous operation. The new method allows you to achieve serious results without incisions and anesthesia.

Neurologist Nico Dozenbach notes that such therapy will allow treatment to begin at the earliest stages, without waiting for the symptoms to become severe. Doctors hope that fine-tuning the SCAN network can not only remove the tremor, but also slow down the development of the disease.