Study: Brain pacemaker limits cognitive decline in Alzheimer's patients

An electrical stimulation implant similar to a cardiac pacemaker can help maintain problem-solving and decision-making skills in Alzheimer's disease patients, according to the results of a pilot study published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

For the study, researchers implanted the electrical stimulation device into the brains of three Alzheimer's patients. These patients received electrical deep brain stimulation targeting the frontal lobes for at least 18 months.

All participants displayed improvements in decision-making skills and problem-solving. For example, one participant who was not doing her own meal preparation prior to her enrollment in 2013, was able to prepare her own food after two years of deep brain stimulation. Researchers also assessed disease progression and found patients with the implant demonstrated a slower decline in cognitive skills compared to those without the implant.

"We have many memory aides, tools and pharmaceutical treatments to help Alzheimer's patients with memory, but we don't have anything to help with improving their judgments, making good decisions, or increasing their ability to selectively focus attention on the task at hand and avoid distractions," said Douglas Scharre, MD, co-author of the study and director of the Division of Cognitive Neurology at Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center's Neurological Institute in Columbus. "By stimulating [the frontal lobes] of the brain, the Alzheimer's subjects cognitive and daily functional abilities as a whole declined more slowly than Alzheimer's patients in a matched comparison group not being treated with DBS."

The implantable technology has already been used to treat tremors in more than 130,000 Parkinson's patients worldwide. This is the first use of the technology for behavioral regulation.

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