Research

— Recent studies have shown that specific motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) are correlated with oscillatory beta-band (12-30 Hz) activity in the basal ganglia. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an established therapy for PD, but is currently applied in an open-loop configuration. A computational model of the cortico-basal ganglia network was developed to systematically test the performance of five separate linear control schemes for closed-loop DBS. Each controller modulated the amplitude of DBS using the oscillatory activity in the basal ganglia as a biomarker. All controllers yielded a reduction in current and demonstrated a response to the suppression and resurgence of oscillations within the network. The model developed here can be further used to design and test more complex non-linear control schemes.