Helen Bronte-Stewart, MD, MSE, Director, Stanford Movement Disorders Center, will discuss the latest in deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson’s Disease at the Wednesday, October 10th, PD support group meeting at Little House in Menlo Park. Her talk is titled “Sensing Brain Rhythms Enable Personalized Closed-Loop Deep Brain Stimulation.” The meeting starts at 2pm and is open to the public.
Here are the meeting details:
When
Wednesday, October 10, 2:00pm-3:30pm
Where
Little House Activity Center, 800 Middle Avenue, Menlo Park CA 94025.
Note
No RSVP required. Event is free and open to the public.
Little House is located on Middle Avenue about 2 blocks west of El Camino Real (there is a large Safeway at the corner of El Camino and Middle). Immediately after passing tennis courts and ball fields on your right, please turn right into the driveway at the small green and white Little House sign. Proceed around the ballfields and park in the large lot that serves Little House. Parking is free. Upon arrival proceed through the entrance doors, across the lobby and make a left turn at the welcome desk. The group meets in the Auditorium (down the corridor and to the left of the welcome desk). If you have questions about the meeting details, contact the group leader, Robin Riddle, at 650.724.6090 or via email at rriddle@stanford.edu.
About
Dr. Bronte-Stewart received her bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics from the University of York in England, her Master’s Degree in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and her MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Following her internship in medicine and residency in neurology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Bronte-Stewart completed post-doctoral fellowships in movement disorders and in single unit electrophysiology and motor control with Dr. Stephen Lisberger, at the University of California in San Francisco. She is board certified in psychiatry and neurology. Her expertise in single neuronal electrophysiology in primates has been transferred to the operating room where she performs the intra-operative microelectrode mapping during deep brain stimulations (DBS) procedures.
Dr. Bronte-Stewart’s research goal is to understand how the brain controls movement. She developed computerized technology to measure human movement and currently uses this in conjunction with recordings of neuronal and neural network activity in the brain to correlate brain signals with different movements in Parkinson’s Disease, tremor and dystonia. She and her team have discovered that people with Parkinson’s Disease may have signature “brain arrhythmias” in the subthalamic nucleus in the brain. These rhythms are reduced by DBS at intensities that improve movement. She and her team are now investigating whether these rhythms are directly associated with abnormal movement and therefore whether that can be used as a biomarker for demand brain pacemakers, similar to demand cardiac pacemakers. They are also investigating whether this abnormal rhythm comes from the cortex and whether this will be another potential site for electrical stimulation to treat movement disorders. Dr. Bronte-Stewart is also very interested in balance and gait disorders and has an active research program in this area. Dr. Bronte-Stewart will be discussing details of her research in this presentation.
Stanford Movement Disorders Center
At the American Parkinson Disease Association Information and Referral Center at Stanford, we have extensive resources on Deep Brain Stimulation on our webpage You can also learn more about DBS at local DBS support groups that meet throughout Northern and Central California.