Precision Diagnostics & Neuromodulation Therapies
for Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease is the second-most common neurodegenerative disorder, affecting 2–3% of the population ≥65 years of age. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) has become a standard treatment for neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor, to ameliorate patient motor symptoms when medications are insufficient. Although DBS is as an effective therapy, finding the optimal stimulation settings can be challenging. The next generation DBS systems with sensing and computing capabilities and multi-contact leads provide promising platforms for developing novel therapies for medication-refractory neuro-psychiatric disorders. However, the current clinical approach, which involves manually programming these systems, is very time consuming and requires each patient to undergo numerous clinical tests. This is in part due to variations in the surgical targeting of electrodes, dynamics of the disease, and state-dependent therapeutic DBS parameters. Manual programming of these DBS systems is even more challenging in situations where the patient does not have access to a specialized center. Therefore, there is a need to develop an automated programming framework for optimization of deep brain stimulation. Our group is working to develop an automated, patient-specific framework for optimization of DBS parameters. We believe that a black-box optimization algorithm can optimize stimulation settings with considerably fewer tremor evaluation tests.