From continuous to adaptive deep brain stimulation: Personalized modulation improves motor complications and sleep in Parkinson's Disease.

BACKGROUND

Adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS) dynamically modulates stimulation parameters in real time based on ongoing neural activity, potentially overcoming key limitations of conventional continuous DBS (cDBS) in Parkinson's disease (PD).

OBJECTIVES

To assess the impact of switching from cDBS to aDBS on motor and non-motor symptoms in PD patients with suboptimal cDBS outcomes.

METHODS

Four PD patients transitioned from optimized cDBS to aDBS using threshold algorithms tailored to beta-band activity. Motor and non-motor outcomes were assessed before surgery, under cDBS, and 9 months after aDBS using MDS-UPDRS parts I-IV, PDSS-2, and PDQ-39.

RESULTS

aDBS reduced motor complications (ΔUPDRS-IV: -40.4%), while maintaining motor benefit. Patients showed improved sleep (ΔPDSS-2: -52.9%), improvement in non-motor and motor aspects of daily-living (ΔUPDRS-I: -43.6%; ΔUPDRS-II:- 31.3%), and quality-of-life (ΔPDQ-39: -24.7%). No adverse effects occurred and all patients preferred aDBS over cDBS.

CONCLUSIONS

aDBS was feasible, well tolerated, and improved motor fluctuations and sleep quality compared with cDBS, supporting its role in personalized neuromodulation for PD.