TACS in Parkinson's Disease

Current electrical stimulation treatments for Parkison's disease involve placing electrodes deep into the brain to stimulate certain regions of the brain. The treatment works well and can greatly improve quality of life, but is not without risks, including bleeding, and is expensive. However, researchers at Oxford University have developed a new technique, called transcranial alternating current stimulation (TACS), that uses electrodes that can be place on the skin, or even just beneath the skin that has the potential to achieve the same effect. Placing one electrode near the base of the neck and a second electrode on the skin over the motor cortex region of the brain, the two electrodes send matched signals through the brain that cancel out the tremour signal, analagous to how noise-cancelling headphones work. The technology still has to be developed into a viable therapy, including a system to detect the native signals in the brain and deliver the signal to cancel out the tremour.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-therapy-electricity-cancel-parkinson-tremors.html#jCp

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