Until now, the deep brain region called the subthalamic nucleus has been deeply involved in the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.In fact, surgically placing electrodes at the same site and performing electrical stimulation alleviates the symptoms of Parkinson's disease.It was thought that this involved an abnormal brain activity called β-vibration in the subthalamic nucleus, but the details were unknown because there was no way to control only β-vibration.

　The research group measured the brain waves of Parkinson's disease patients undergoing electrical stimulation treatment of the subthalamic nucleus from the same electrode when the battery of the electrical stimulation device was replaced.Furthermore, the intensity of β-vibration was calculated in real time from the measured EEG of the subthalamic nucleus, and the size was presented to the patient as the size of a circle.When the patient was trained to change the size while looking at this circle for 10 minutes, the β vibration of the subthalamic nucleus changed significantly.This is the first result showing that the patient can intentionally control the brain waves in the deep part of the brain.

　Furthermore, we investigated the relationship between β-vibration and the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, but no significant relationship was found, suggesting that there are other brain activities that cause the symptoms.In the future, we would like to elucidate the brain activity that causes Parkinson's disease by controlling the brain activity by the same method.

　In recent years, a technique has been developed in which a deep brain stimulator automatically analyzes brain waves and controls stimuli.By combining this research result with such technology, it is expected to develop a new treatment method that targets the abnormal brain activity that causes the symptoms and effectively alleviates the symptoms.

Paper information:[E Neuro] Real-time neurofeedback to modulate β-band power in the subthalamic nucleus in Parkinson's disease patients (PDF)