Scientific publications
Home-based transcranial static magnetic field stimulation of the motor cortex for treating levodopa-induced dyskinesias in Parkinson's disease: A randomized controlled trial
Michele Dileone 1 , Claudia Ammann 2 , Valentina Catanzaro 2 , Cristina Pagge 3 , Rosanna Piredda 2 , Mariana H G Monje 4 , Irene Navalpotro-Gomez 5 , Alberto Bergareche 5 , María Cruz Rodríguez-Oroz 6 , Lydia Vela-Desojo 7 , Fernando Alonso-Frech 8 , María J Catalán 9 , José A Molina 10 , Nuria López-Ariztegu 11 , Antonio Oliviero 12 , José A Obeso 13 , Guglielmo Foffani 14
Dear Editor,
Levodopa-induced dyskinesias are a common complication in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) treated chronically with levodopa. Even though dyskinesias may be more tolerable than parkinsonism, they can be highly debilitating for some patients. The difficulty to achieve satisfactory pharmacological treatment of dyskinesias often motivates the escalation toward more advanced invasive treatments. However, even with invasive treatments dyskinesias may remain problematic.
A promising approach is offered by non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS). Several small, randomized studies (sample sizes ≤17 patients) suggest that presumably reducing the excitability of motor cortical areas with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) may be effective for reducing levodopa-induced dyskinesias [1]. However, rTMS is not portable, which limits its application to a center-based therapeutic model and possibly hindered the path toward larger, longer and more definitive clinical trials.
CITATION Brain Stimul. 2022 May 21;S1935-861X(22)00091-2. doi: 10.1016/j.brs.2022.05.012
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