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Beyond improving Parkinson's symptoms, does deep brain stimulation stall their progression?

January 23, 2011
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Does DBS make a long-term difference in the motor symptoms of Parkinson's patients, even after the device has been turned off and medications discontinued?




Part of their analysis -- evaluating patients while their drugs temporarily were discontinued but brain stimulation continued -- confirmed previous studies: Deep brain stimulation is an effective therapy for advanced Parkinson's disease up to five years from implantation, although there is a gradual reduction in benefit over time. This effectiveness decline usually is attributed to the disease's unrelenting progression.

But the researchers also explored Parkinson's natural progression in these patients by temporarily discontinuing both their drugs and brain stimulation, then comparing motor function at these yearly intervals with pre-treatment scores.

"In these patients who were effectively treated with DBS stimulation, we found that motor symptoms remained remarkably stable over time. There was no significant progression. Now we need to do larger studies to find out why. It may be, as some have suggested, that deep brain stimulation stabilizes the motor progression of the disease, although other studies indicate that Parkinson's disease may just naturally stabilize after several years of progression," said Tagliati, pointing out that "non-motor" symptoms, including depression, dementia and others, currently do not respond to deep brain stimulation and appear to continue to progress.


"Providing the most effective therapy requires teamwork and the experience and expertise that come from working in a specialized center. It involves placing the device in precisely the right location, programming and fine-tuning the device, properly adjusting medications, studying many patients and outcomes, learning and teaching -- all the activities found in an academic center," Tagliati says. "We're looking forward to pursuing innovative research strategies in the near future. Although we know DBS can help many patients with Parkinson's disease, there's much more we need to learn. We can see that stimulation works but we don't really know how it works."





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Journal Reference:

  1. Michele Tagliati, Caitlin Martin, Ron Alterman. Lack of Motor Symptoms Progression in Parkinson's Disease Patients With Long-Term Bilateral Subthalamic Deep Brain Stimulation. International Journal of Neuroscience, 2010; 120 (11): 717 DOI: 10.3109/00207454.2010.518777

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Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. "Beyond improving Parkinson's symptoms, does deep brain stimulation stall their progression?." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 January 2011. <>.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. (2011, January 23). Beyond improving Parkinson's symptoms, does deep brain stimulation stall their progression?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 22, 2017 from
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. "Beyond improving Parkinson's symptoms, does deep brain stimulation stall their progression?." ScienceDaily. (accessed February 22, 2017).