Interfacing with the brain for therapy

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The treatment of diseases of the brain remains a major challenge. This is partly because drugs ignore the moment-to-moment interactions between nerve cells that determine brain function and dysfunction. Electrical stimulation therapies, however, can intervene fast enough to modify these interactions. Our central hypothesis is that we can improve therapies based on electrical stimulation by titrating stimulation according to the state of neural circuits at any given instance. In this research programme we will focus on patients with two exemplar conditions, Parkinson’s disease and Essential Tremor, and develop feedback controlled forms of deep brain stimulation, and of non-invasive stimulation techniques where stimulation is delivered by electrodes on the skin to the surface of the brain or to nerves in the limbs. Using these approaches we seek to develop treatment approaches that serve to increase efficacy and lessen side-effects.