Anagrafe della ricerca

Deep Brain Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) is a well-established surgical therapy for patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD) and motor complications that cannot be adequately managed with medication. Instrumented gait analysis already proved succesfull for objectively evaluating alterations of locomotor patterns in a wide variety of neurological and neurodegenerative disease, including PD. Only recently, the study of motor modules, through the muscle synergy theory, revealed its potential in clinics for understanding the basic mechanisms through which the Central Nervous System (CNS) coordinate different motor tasks. In particular, it is possible to reconstruct the group of muscles that synergistically cooperate and the time-dependent neural commands that drive it. The aims of this project are: (1) evaluating the effects of bilateral STN-DBS on the motor control strategies of PD patients during dual-task walking, (2) defyning and validating a clinical protocol to quantify the functional changes of PD patients through a complete gait analysis and muscle synergy analysis. The assessments will be conducted before STN-DBS surgery, and at 3 months and at 12 months after it, by recording non-invasively the electromyography (EMG) activity of the main muscles involved in gait. New medical knowledge will be acquired for the management of PD patients.