Date of Award
2026
Document Type
Campus Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Engineering (PhD)
Administrative Home Department
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Advisor 1
Chunxiu (Traci) Yu
Committee Member 1
Jeremy Goldman
Committee Member 2
Sean J. Kirkpatrick
Committee Member 3
Zhiying (Jenny) Shan
Abstract
Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease that primarily affects voluntary movement characterized by tremors, rigidity, and bradykinesia. As the disease progresses and the efficacy of pharmacological treatments declines, deep brain stimulation (DBS) can be applied to the subthalamic nucleus (STN) or globus pallidus internus (GPi) to alleviate motor symptoms. While effective, DBS can produce adverse effects such as psychiatric changes and speech impairment that can greatly reduce the quality of life of the patients. To reduce these unwanted effects, optimization strategies such as optogenetics and adaptive DBS (aDBS) have been developed to improve spatial and temporal specificity respectively. GPi optogenetic stimulation was applied to a PD rat model using the ultrafast opsin Chronos. High-frequency optical stimulation successfully ameliorated motor symptoms and suppressed beta oscillations in Chronos-expressing animals, indicating both the necessity of high-frequency stimulation and a strong correlation between beta oscillation suppression and motor improvement.
Optogenetics was further combined with aDBS by using beta activity in the substantia nigra pars reticulata (SNr) to control STN optogenetic stimulation. An aDBS algorithm that used amplitude-based beta activity reduced motor impairment as effectively as 130 Hz open loop stimulation while only using around half of the amount of stimulation. To further advance control-signal selection for aDBS, neural activity from the primary motor cortex (M1) was analyzed using both spectral and aperiodic methods. Notably, the aperiodic exponent decreased during 130 Hz stimulation, suggesting its potential as a novel control signal for aDBS.
Recommended Citation
Jackson, Jacob, "ADVANCING DEEP BRAIN STIMULATION FOR PARKINSON’S DISEASE: OPTIMIZATION THROUGH CELL-SPECIFIC OPTOGENETIC APPROACHES", Campus Access Dissertation, Michigan Technological University, 2026.