TMS possibilities for Parkinson's Disease ?

MIT Technology Review published an article that goes into some research being done at Duke University which could be translated into a possible use for TMS.
Using a spinal cord stimulator on mice that have the rodent equivalent of Parkinson's the researchers were able to control the symptoms as well, or better than, Deep Brain Stimulation.
This makes me wonder if using a TMS coil over the spinal cord could achieve a similar effect for patients with Parkinson's?
Here is the abstract that was published in Science.

Gone for a While, Now I am Back!

Things have been a bit slow on the Neuromod Blog due to life inserting itself between me and my passion, neuromodulation. New job (non-operative back and neck pain specialist for a large medical group), a move and a board exam later, and I am back.
New posts to follow. Stay tuned, this is an exciting time in neuromodulation. New discoveries and new studies are being published all the time, the pace of our understanding is increasing.
I was speaking with two colleagues the other day, one is a neurosurgeon and the other a plastic surgeon. We started to talk about the potential clinical/therapeutic benefits of neuromodulation and the best analogy I could think of was to equate our understanding of the brain and the possibilities for neuromod as something akin to opening a door to a dark room and realizing the room is big, but you are not sure how big. You yell to see how close the back wall is and all you really can tell is that the room is in fact something like a stadium.

TMS approved for Depression!

WebMD just published a short blurb on one of their blogs stating that the FDA has cleared TMS for use in depression. They go on to state that there is now an indication for use in patients who have failed a trial of one antidepressant.
Now that this indication has been made, what will the next inidication be???? Stay tuned.

MIT article on tDCS

The MIT Technology Review has a short article about research being done by the NIH. They interview Dr. Wasserman who has done a lot of work on non-invasive neuromodulation. He brings up some good points about the potential uses for tDCS, particularly in a healthy population. Can you imagine the demand for tDCS if high school senior find out that a nine volt battery could boost their SAT scores? Can you imagine the uproar in the Op-Ed pages? I think I can hear it from where I am sitting.....

Forbes article on Vascular Depression and TMS

Forbes Magazine has a write-up about treatments for vascular depression that are up-and-coming. rTMS seems to be the front-runner. I will be excited to read the actual results of the study when they are published.

Neuromodulation Explained

Here is an eloquent explanation of neuromodulation by Alan Wu, a neurologist at UCLA. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Wu while I was learning TMS and tDCS techniques at Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone's lab at Harvard.

Summary
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) are promising noninvasive cortical stimulation methods for adjunctive treatment of movement disorders. They avoid surgical risks and provide theoretical advantages of specific neural circuit neuromodulation. Neuromodulatory effects depend on extrinsic stimulation factors (cortical target, frequency, intensity, duration, number of sessions), intrinsic patient factors (disease process, individual variability and symptoms, state of medication treatment), and outcome measures. Most studies to date have shown beneficial effects of rTMS or tDCS on clinical symptoms in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and support the notion of spatial specificity to the effects on motor and nonmotor symptoms. Stimulation parameters have varied widely, however, and some studies are poorly controlled. Studies of rTMS or tDCS in dystonia have provided abundant data on physiology, but few on clinical effects. Multiple mechanisms likely contribute to the clinical effects of rTMS and tDCS in movement disorders, including normalization of cortical excitability, rebalancing of distributed neural network activity, and induction of dopamine release. It remains unclear how to individually adjust rTMS or tDCS factors for the most beneficial effects on symptoms of PD or dystonia. Nonetheless, the noninvasive nature, minimal side effects, positive effects in preliminary clinical studies, and increasing evidence for rational mechanisms make rTMS and tDCS attractive for ongoing investigation.

rTMS makes you stronger?

A study by a group out of the University of Cologne in Germany has demonstrated that rTMS over the unaffected motor cortex of patients that have had a stroke will make their use of the affected hand more efficient and quicker.
The paper explains how rTMS is thought to work in a very nice manner and backs it up with a diagram that puts it into very understandable terms. Essentially there is imbalance between the two sides of the brain after a stroke. There are excitatory and inhibitory inputs from both sides of the brain which help us fine tune our movements, making them efficient, accurate and adaptable. Add a prehensile thumb and you start to understand the magnitude of the human brain. Now that we are figuring out how to rebalance a damaged brain the possibilities are becoming apparent. And I am sure that when we look back in twenty years or more at the preliminary data and concepts we will laugh at our shallow understanding of the subject.
Once again, I am amazed by the clinical implications of this. As a physiatrist (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation specialist that works with stroke patients) I am encouraged and excited by the possibilities that are starting to present themselves. This is a technology that is going to revolutionize stroke rehabilitation; I am unsure if there are other advances that have occurred in this field that are comparable. The advent of clot busting drugs was a milestone, the development and use of advanced imaging techniques as well. Neuromodulation as a therapeutic intervention and as a research tool has staggering possibilities.