Shared from parkinsonsnewstoday.com.
Stimulating nerve cells in a region of the brain involved in processing sound and emotions may help ease motor symptoms such as those caused by Parkinson’s disease, without unwanted side effects on emotional response, according to a study in rats.
While it’s still early to understand if these findings can apply to patients, exploring brain circuits beyond the basal ganglia — a region involved in motor control and affected by Parkinson’s — may lead to new treatments that ease the disease’s motor symptoms, the researchers said.
“Even if the path toward new therapeutic approaches to alleviating the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease still appears long, such foundational research is immensely important,” Wolfgang Kruse, PhD, a researcher at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, said in a university press release.