Parkinson’s disease affects more than 160 000 patients in France, and the general public is aware of this disease mainly for its motor symptoms. However, patients with Parkinson’s disease also suffer from so-called “non-motor” disorders, notably affecting the ability to control impulsive behavior. Currently, no drug is able to relieve these disorders, which motivates the development of new therapeutic approaches to improve the quality of life of patients. The PKSTIM project proposes to test, for the first time, the use of a non-invasive technique of electrical stimulation of the brain to improve cognitive function in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Additionally, using computational neuroelectric modeling, the PKSTIM project will assess novel stimulation signals that could maximize the clinical effectiveness of non-invasive electrical stimulation of the brain.

 

Pipeline of the PKSTIM project: using non-invasive transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) to normalize the functional brain networks associated with specific cognitive functions that are altered in Parkinson’s disease. 

 

The overarching goal of PKSTIM is therefore to improve the quality of life of patients with Parkinson’s disease and to provide an innovative technology for non-invasive brain stimulation that could also be used in other neurological diseases.