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Deep Brain Stimulation Studied in Alzheimer's Patients

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Although many initiatives to conquer Alzheimer's disease focus on amyloid plaques in the  brain, Andres Lozano, M.D., Ph.D., chair of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto, is concentrating on a different strategy—deep brain stimulation (DBS). He and his colleagues tested the hypothesis that DBS would increase cerebral glucose metabolism and lead to better clinical outcomes in five subjects with mild, probable Alzhemer's. And their results  confirmed their hypothesis, they reported in the September Archives of Neurology. "We are  conducting an NIH-funded phase 2 trial of DBS in Alzheimer's, and we plan on enrolling 50 patients," Lozano told Psychiatric News.

DBS is already approved for treating refractory Parkinson's disease and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Before long it may be approved for treating refractory depression as well. For more information on DBS research, see Psychiatric News here and here. Read about DBS in Tourette's syndrome in the American Journal of Psychiatry.  

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