Neural Oscillations in Health and Disease

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Most neurological and psychiatric disorders are driven by complicated neural circuits. Tremor is one such disorder, driven by exaggerated rhythmic activity in brain regions involved in motor control. To date, disease circuit remains poorly understood and treatment options limited. Due to limitations of pharmacological therapy for long-term treatment of tremor, deep brain stimulation has become a prevalent alternative for management of disease symptoms. Deep brain stimulation is an effective surgical treatment, which involves regular and high frequency electrical stimulation of key brain regions by a battery powered brain pacemaker. Stimulation is effective, but unfortunately may affect other functions giving rise to side effects, impacting patients' speech, balance and impulsivity. This is because the form of stimulation presently applied cannot distinguish between diseased and normal brain activities. Enclosed research programme aims to alter the way stimulation is delivered so that it preferentially disrupts disease-related brain activities, leaving normal activity relatively spared. To this end, I will develop theoretical models to understand how brain is organized in health and disease. Theoretical models are powerful tools that can be used to investigate brain function in different levels of detail and to refine clinically testable hypothesis. I will interrogate theoretical models to determine how to selectively disrupt disease related brain activities and subsequently pilot this novel stimulation pattern in a group of Parkinson's disease and Essential Tremor patients, who have already been implanted with deep brain stimulation electrodes for treatment of their tremor. This work will provide significant contributions to our understanding of how brain is organized during disease, and crucially will inform us how treatment can be improved to be pathology specific, reducing unwanted side effects.