READING THE SIGNALS
New technologies improve care for Parkinson's disease patients.
By Kara Mason
October 2025
This spring, faculty from the University of Colorado School of Medicine made a big step forward in the world of Parkinson’s disease treatment. On March 21, they were the first in the country to complete deep brain stimulation programming using new electrode identifier (EI) and adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS) technology.
Deep brain stimulation is a surgical treatment that places electrodes into specific regions of the brain to disrupt diseased networks that cause Parkinson’s disease symptoms, such as tremors and stiffness.
The electrode is connected to a battery positioned just below the clavicle, similar to the workings of a cardiac pacemaker.
In February, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the aDBS and EI applications. The latter allows the clinician to use the patient’s own brain signals to quickly localize the area to deliver therapy.
UPGRADING FROM TRADITIONAL DBS SYSTEMS
CU’s Advanced Therapies in Movement Disorders team — led by Drew Kern, MD, MS, FAAN, associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery and John Thompson, PhD, associate professor of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry — played a critical role in trials that evaluated the safety and effectiveness of the EI technology. Twenty-three U.S. centers, including CU, were selected to roll out these new updates first.
The causes of many cases of Parkinson’s disease remain unknown, but researchers do know that abnormal brain signals are at the root of movement symptoms. Disrupting those abnormal signals through implanted electrodes has been shown to lessen symptoms. For some patients, it decreases their need for some medications.
“All DBS systems traditionally have all been an output, meaning all they do is deliver electricity to the brain, but an electrode can also be an input and a recording device,” Kern explains.
“This new system, in conjunction with our efforts, has made this a recording electrode so it can record and better inform the clinician how to program the electrode,” he says. “The clinician can then make the system have an output that directly responds to the needs of the brain. We can finally listen to what the brain is telling us to do to improve the person’s symptoms all the while in the outpatient setting.”
The new EI and aDBS technology is delivered to patients with specific existing deep brain stimulation hardware via a software update.
DELIVERING PERSONALIZED CARE
The new EI technology greatly reduces the time required to program the device and helps the clinician to identify patient-specific biomarkers. When the biomarker is very high, indicating greater symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, the device delivers more stimulation. When the biomarker is low and the individual does not need much stimulation to control symptoms, it reduces stimulation.
Thompson says that the use of EI holds great promise for patients during initial programming and reduces the time required for clinicians to devise more complex symptom specific configurations.
“It will be exciting to see how this closed-loop system improves many other aspects of Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders," Thompson says.
NEW FRONTIERS FOR RESEARCH
Kern and Thompson, along with medical engineers, were part of sensing studies that tested the identifiers in the new aDBS system. Now, they’re looking to what those recordings could mean for research and patient care.
“There are many motor and non-motor symptoms, including gait, sleep, and cognition in Parkinson’s disease that are currently being investigated in the context of aDBS – many of which contributed to the recent approval and were supported by NIH BRAIN Initiative funding,” Thompson says.
Ongoing research is investigating what factors impact the fluctuations of the brain signals that induce tremors and movement symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
Following the release of the EI and aDBS system to clinics across the country, Kern and Thompson expect there will be a flood of new research studies asking questions that couldn’t be answered with previous technology.
“It’s an exciting time for researchers, clinicians, and patients. This moves us forward in treating and learning more about Parkinson’s disease in ways we could only have imaged,” Kern says.