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Science 20 March 2009:
Vol. 323. no. 5921, pp. 1578 - 1582
DOI: 10.1126/science.1164901
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Research Articles

Spinal Cord Stimulation Restores Locomotion in Animal Models of Parkinson's Disease

Romulo Fuentes,1*{dagger} Per Petersson,1,2* William B. Siesser,3 Marc G. Caron,1,3 Miguel A. L. Nicolelis1,4,5,6,7,8

Dopamine replacement therapy is useful for treating motor symptoms in the early phase of Parkinson's disease, but it is less effective in the long term. Electrical deep-brain stimulation is a valuable complement to pharmacological treatment but involves a highly invasive surgical procedure. We found that epidural electrical stimulation of the dorsal columns in the spinal cord restores locomotion in both acute pharmacologically induced dopamine-depleted mice and in chronic 6-hydroxydopamine–lesioned rats. The functional recovery was paralleled by a disruption of aberrant low-frequency synchronous corticostriatal oscillations, leading to the emergence of neuronal activity patterns that resemble the state normally preceding spontaneous initiation of locomotion. We propose that dorsal column stimulation might become an efficient and less invasive alternative for treatment of Parkinson's disease in the future.

1 Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
2 Department of Experimental Medical Science, Neuronano Research Center, Lund University, BMC F10, 221 84 Lund, Sweden.
3 Department of Cell Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
4 Center for Neuroengineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
5 Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
6 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
7 Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience of Natal (ELS-IINN), Natal RN 59066060, Brazil.
8 Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne 1015, Switzerland.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: fuentes{at}neuro.duke.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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T. Baba, M. Kameda, T. Yasuhara, T. Morimoto, A. Kondo, T. Shingo, N. Tajiri, F. Wang, Y. Miyoshi, C. V. Borlongan, et al. (2009)
Stroke 40, e598-e605
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The Neuroscientist Comments.
(2009)
Neuroscientist 15, 414-415
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)