Parkinson's: brain pacemaker against behavioral addictions

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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In Parkinson's disease, drugs that increase dopamine levels in the brain help. But in the long term, they often have unpleasant side effects: They reduce the patient's impulse control. The consequences can be addiction to shopping and gambling, binge eating or an excessive desire for sex.

The obsessive-compulsive behavior disorders are very stressful for the patients and their loved ones. But there is a possible antidote: deep brain stimulation. So-called brain pacemakers are used for this purpose.

Pacemaker for the brain

These devices have been prescribed to Parkinson's patients for a long time. Electrodes are placed deep in the brain, where they stimulate certain areas of the brain with electrical impulses. They bring the patient's brain back into rhythm, so to speak, and thus help against movement problems such as tremors, gait disorders or so-called freezing, in which the patient suddenly freezes in motion.

So far, however, the devices have only been used when drugs are no longer effective. Scientists led by Prof. Paul Krack from the University Hospital in Geneva have now discovered that deep brain stimulation can improve both movement and impulse control.

For the study, the researchers had recruited a total of 251 Parkinson's patients. Half of them continued to only take Parkinson's medication. The others received deep brain stimulation in addition to the medication.

Better impulse control

After two years, the behavioral problems of the patients with brain pacemakers had clearly improved - in the group treated purely with drugs, however, they had gotten worse.

The scientists could not determine possible negative effects of the therapy such as apathy or a higher tendency to depression, which could be associated with excessively inhibited impulses.

Better quality of life, less medication

Previous evaluations had already shown that the drug dose could be reduced by 38 percent under the brain stimulation. In the other patients, however, it had to be increased by 21 percent. In addition, the quality of life of patients with a brain pacemaker had improved significantly.

Dopamine deficiency in the brain

In Parkinson's disease, dopamine-producing nerve cells in the brain increasingly perish. Among other things, the messenger substance is important for the fine-tuning of movements. If the number of dopamine-producing cells falls below 60 percent, the first movement disorders appear.

Parkinson's disease is one of the most common diseases of the nervous system. Around 220,000 patients suffer from it in Germany.

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