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 Tuesday, February 12, YOPD support group meeting at the Board Room, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford. Her talk is titled “Sensing Brain Rhythms Enable Personalized Closed-Loop Deep Brain Stimulation.” The meeting starts at 6:30pm. The event is free and open to those diagnosed with PD by the age of 50 or younger and their family members. An RSVP 24 hours in advance is requested to the group leader.
Here are the meeting details:
When
Tuesday, February 12, from 6:30-8:00pm.
Where
Board Room, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH) Stanford, 725 Welch Road, Palo Alto CA 94304
Note
An RSVP is required as a light dinner will be provided. Please RSVP by 9am on Monday, February 11, to John Mamin, 650-248-7363
Parking is available for a fee (currently $3) at the LPCH garage, or for free, across the street at 730 Welch Road (this parking lot is only accessible from Vineyard Lane behind the building-Vineyard Lane runs between Sand Hill and Quarry Roads).
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. Please also visit our DBS Stories page to learn more from those who have had the surgery with first-hand accounts and videos of their experiences, You can also learn more about DBS at local DBS support groups that meet throughout Northern and Central California.