The study will walk people through virtual
environments that usually help or harm
gait freezing, while getting fMRI scans
of the brain.
Image: iStockphoto
A world first study on how thinking tasks impact on the 'freezing' of feet often experienced by people with Parkinson's Disease (PD) will lead to new directions for targeting therapy.
Conducted by the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Research Institute and funded by The Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, the study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a customised 'virtual reality' environment to elicit the so-called Freezing of Gait (FOG) in PD patients. FOG is a leading cause of falls among PD patients and responds poorly to current treatments.
"While the mechanisms underlying FOG are unknown, our group recently proposed that these episodes may reflect a temporary overload in specific circuits of the brain," says the study's principle investigator Dr Simon Lewis.
"Initial results have been very exciting and certainly confirm our belief that this study will identify the processes underlying FOG in Parkinson's."
Whilst lying in an MRI brain scanner, patients with PD use foot pedals to 'walk' through a realistic three-dimensional environment depicted on a small screen. The virtual environment task probes the cognitive processes that often provoke freezing episodes (e.g. sliding doors) or alleviate them (e.g. striped floors).
Combining fMRI with the virtual reality task helps researchers identify the abnormal pattern of brain activation responsible for FOG in PD.
Dr. Lewis will present the study and its progress at the inaugural International Workshop on Freezing in Washington DC.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.
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