8 ms·
Parkinson's patient able to walk 6km without problems after spinal implant
- gardenfelder 3y ago"Marc, 63, had freezing of gait before becoming first with advanced Parkinson’s to be fitted with device restoring normal signalling"
- darkerside 3y agoSimply incredible
- caycep 3y agoah, fixing the brain problem at the legs instead of the brain.... The Japanese had earlier examples but I think it was just a typical spinal stim unit they appropriated from the chronic pain folks. This one seemed to map the myotomes a little more in detail from my brief overview, so it's probably acting as a complex leg muscle actuator w/ a central controller chip vs. just blasting the spine w/ juice
- mahkeiro 3y agoThis is coming from the same lab (among others) that is working on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30269699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30269699
- philjohn 3y agoMore recent update https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/24/paralysed-man-walks-using-device-that-reconnects-brain-with-muscles https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/24/paralysed-ma...
- hanniabu 3y agoah, fixing the brain problem at the brain instead of the gut....
- vGPU 3y agoTo be fair, regrowing neurons tends to be a good bit more difficult than throwing a DSP on some electrodes. Oversimplified explanation, obviously, but it helps illustrate the point.
- wombatpm 3y agoSolves some of the initial problems with muscle tremors and control, but does nothing for the dementia that sets in later.
- m463 3y agoIs the dementia caused by the disease, or a correlated effect due to the loss of mobility and the ability to exercise, or swallow regular food, or similar? I've read that exercise, hard exercise, can mitigate or recover some of the effects of parkinsons.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- maxerickson 3y agoNuplazid, an antipsychotic marketed for Parkinson's, targets the imbalance created by the massive loss of dopermergenic cells. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6007714/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6007714/ It certainly had a significant impact on a Parkinson's patient I knew (from regular expressions of and involvement with delusional hallucinations to relatively normal, organized behavior). Of course the loss of cells might be self reinforcing.
- Veserv 3y agoThe dementia is probably caused by the underlying mechanism. The motor symptoms of Parkinson’s are caused by the loss of dopamine producing neurons in the motor cortex. The loss of those neurons for any reason would cause Parkinson style motor symptoms. The cause of the loss of dopamine producing neurons in standard Parkinson’s is not understood, but appears to be related to a thing called Lewy bodies which are deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein. The presence of Lewy bodies outside of the motor cortex is correlated with a disease called Lewy body dementia rather than Parkinson’s. Most likely, there is a underlying process that causes neuron loss that slowly spreads. This process frequently starts in the motor cortex resulting in Parkinson’s, but sometimes starts elsewhere causing Lewy body dementia. Dementia in a person with Parkinson’s likely occurs when the process starts spreading beyond the motor cortex which effectively causes Lewy body dementia now that it is no longer isolated to the motor cortex.
- rad_gruchalski 3y agoCan we give it to MJF?
- khazhoux 3y agoMonterey Jazz Festival, or professional wrestler Maxwell Jacob Friedman?
- DistractionRect 3y agoMichael J Fox, he was a talented actor whose career was ended by Parkinsons, and a pretty well known case to most of the US adult population.
- chrisweekly 3y ago"Still: A Michael J Fox Movie" was recently released on Apple TV+, and it was eye-opening. Worthwhile, recommended -- even if (like me) you're not already a particular fan.
- random_ind_dude 3y ago>he was a talented actor Was?
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoBy his own account, he retired from acting in 2021.
- DistractionRect 3y agoI meant it in the way that he's retired now and no longer acting.
- agumonkey 3y agoI assume he knows about these. I hope so.
- caycep 3y ago
- Workaccount2 3y agoJust wait until the parkinsons time bomb goes off in 20-30 years. I hope we figure something out by then: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9422946/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9422946/
- StimDeck 3y agoI tried to get something from that link but the abstract is too broad. Can you quote anything from the paper that could help someone understand without reading the whole thing?
- Zanni 3y agoI think the "time bomb" is in this sentence: "... some viral infections have been linked to an increased risk for the development of PD ..." with the context that we've all just been through a global pandemic.
- elzbardico 3y agoMost people get viral infections from coronaviruses almost every year. A lot of commons colds are caused by coronaviruses. I don't follow why the specific Coronavirus that causes COVID-19 would be different on this regard.
- Exoristos 3y agoPolitical expediency, a lesser-known trait of common viruses.
- autoexec 3y agoThe article says that he's now able to walk 6km without problems but doesn't seem to say what happens after that. Walking 6km is just his typical Sunday routine, so I assume he could walk further if he wanted to, but it's never made clear if that's true or if the batteries of his device typically die after a certain distance, or if the implant somehow becomes less effective after a large number of steps, or what. It's a strange emphases on a very specific number. I wouldn't say "I repaired my car's engine and it can now drive 20 miles" if what I meant was "I repaired my car's engine and it drives normally now"
- interestica 3y agoThe thing that struck me was not mentioning the length of time he was walking for.
- akoboldfrying 3y ago>The article says that he's now able to walk 6km without problems but doesn't seem to say what happens after that. The device explodes. Seriously, "Can walk 6km" is an excellent way to concisely yet still quantitatively describe what the man can now do. (Imagine the response if it had instead merely said "He can go for long walks": "But how long is 'long'??!?")
- michael_nielsen 3y agoI imagine the journalist at some point said: "Just how far do you now walk", and he replied "Oh, I often go for a 6km walk on Sunday." It's a newspaper article, not a technical spec.
- FFP999 3y agoMaybe that's simply the longest distance he's tried, 6 km in one session is a solid walk.
- dghughes 3y agoTo Europeans a 6km walk isn't much at all they'd walk 1km or 2km to a store but in the USA or Canada anything over 250m is a drive. So I'd say to people in the US and Canada 6km seems like a hike but to others it's just a very short walk.
- dimal 3y agoIt's apparently possible to accomplish this without surgery, through neuroplasticity [0]. But why do that when there's a super cool, complex, expensive, technological solution? [0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/08/man-walks-off-parkinsons-symptoms-norman-doidge-extract-brain-heals-body https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/feb/08/man-walks-of...
- vorpalhex 3y ago"apparently possible" In response to an article of a technique actually successfully working. One dudes undiagnosed anecdote is not a gotcha on a literal medical marvel.
- bitwize 3y agoThis is Hackernews. We don't like or trust technology here. Especially when naturopathy and ayurvedic medicine have given us remedies that are literally thousands of years old! /s because Poe's law
- cpncrunch 3y agoIt talks about dopamine, which is literally the placebo effect. It's typical of HN users to post and upvote news stories of weak studies like this one.
- devindotcom 3y agodopamine is a neurotransmitter involved in practically all major brain functions, it's not just the placebo effect. and dopamine therapy is an important part of treating some Parkinsons symptoms. i'm not speaking in favor of the study, just noting that this is not a correct description of what dopamine is or does.
- cpncrunch 3y agoYes, of course. It was just a quick comment pointing out that dopamine is highly influenced by the placebo effect, and parkinsons studies show that the placebo effect has a large effect on rcts for the condition.
- coding123 3y agoI guess we should figure out how to get the rest of the population to walk 6km next...
- urbandw311er 3y agoGlib but probably true
- shiroiuma 3y agoOnly in North America.
- steveBK123 3y agoYeah I was gonna ask if there was a device to get my dad or MIL to walk further than 400m
- justinclift 3y ago> The implant is yet to be tested in a full clinical trial. Hopefully the company behind this doesn't go bust or otherwise stop supporting the implant. Seems to be a common problem for people with leading edge implanted tech, leaving them in a precarious situation afterwards.
- vissidarte_choi 3y agoBut, but, the preassumption is that Parkinson is not curable and so we'll replace part of your body mechanism with implants! It IS good to know we have implants to help them. But, what would really thrill me is that we end up finding something that can cure them!