Vibrotactile Stimulation. Stanford - Cure Parkinson's
Vibrotactile Stimulation. Stanford
I purchased a set of vibrating gloves after seeing this video months ago. Didn’t help with tremors or gait. I wish it was that easy.
What gloves did you buy? Here is what Stanford did - would take some effort to reproduce it.
Device information from the Stanford study of their vibrating glove ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
" vibratory bursts were delivered to four different fingers (all fingers except for the thumb) of both hands with C-2 tactors (EAI Engineering Acoustics Inc., Casselberry, FL). The C-2 tactors were fixed with Velcro tape (Figure S1A), and the constant indentation of the stimulator’s contactor surface was 0.5 mm. The PVCRS pattern consisted of three cycles, each containing a randomized sequence of four vibratory bursts, equally spaced in time and followed by two silent cycles off stimulation (“pause”, Figure S1B). The vibratory bursts had a vibration frequency of 250 Hz and vibration amplitude of 0.35 mm. The vibration amplitude was linearly ramped up within 40 s after PVCRS onset. PVCRS cycle duration was 660 ms, whereas vibratory burst duration was 100 ms. The 3 cycles on, 2 cycles off pattern was repeated periodically1,2,3. The random variation of the vibratory burst sequences2 and the 3:2 ON-OFF pattern1,3 were used to enhance the desynchronizing PVCRS effect. The PVCRS pattern was delivered to both hands, so that the same fingers of both hands were stimulated at the same time. "
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Thanks. The webpage for these gloves is here:
intellinetixvibration.com/p...
Presumably the vibrations are continuous rather than the complex pattern created by the Stanford team and applied individually to fingers. So this does not invalidate what Stanford did, of course it does not confirm it either.
The article is hyper-technical gobbledegook and the Stanford Univ site gives no clue as to any commercial availability. Is there any SPECIFIC AND USEFUL info available as to the availability of the technology/device that looks so impressive in the video?
I'm also curious why the MJ Fox and the Parkinson's Foundation are not pursuing this technology. Is this mechanism too safe and low-profit to be of interest to them? Or what?
Nothing further at this time.
Because, at this point, Stanford doesn't need them.
The initial study corresponding to this video can found here:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Comment to the video:
"Stanford Neurosurgery 1 year ago The patient shown in the video participated in an ongoing trial, not in the first in man study published in Movement Disorders in 2018. For the ongoing trial, researchers have further modified (optimized) the stimulation parameters. The corresponding paper (with results obtained with the new stimulation parameters) will be submitted in the near future. "
The initially reported results using some measures of gait and hand motion were astounding for just a couple of days of a mechanical vibration applied to the fingers. Very odd, though, that UPDRS part III did not change significantly. Hopefully the new version, whenever it is released, will demonstrate efficacy on that measure as well.
Wow, amazing. So interesting. Thank you.
The next study appears to have stalled clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show...
Very frustrating because this looks a really valuable potential therapy
What is it in this link that indicates it had installed?
Recruitment status
I see. I don't know how to account for how amazing the video is? I mean, its the best any of us could hope for, that is, noninvasive, no side effects, essentially harmless.
Von Wolf, can you build this?
If it's for real, it's gonna arrive. There's a big market out there.
And its not just any old vibrating glove.
I'm a bit puzzled that Park Bear says the video was of a trial participant... In a trial that doesn't appear to have started
Has anybody attempted to contact stanford for more information or am I about to become the first?
Do it. I will probably contact myself shortly. It does not say that having FUS would eliminate me, but I assume it will, otherwise I'd be all in.
Fly to Stanford for a few days. What's the big deal? It's free, noninvasive, harmless, and takes two days.
Go for it.
I only planned to ask them the status of the research and, if available trial results, or an expected date of publication. I don't think that the treatment is 2 days for eternity. I read it more as an ongoing treatment. Maybe daily maybe weeklyOr maybe never getting off the ground, although that would be to twin stanford and their video with perlmutter and the glutathione video
What do you think of the Charco Cue 1?
I contacted the principal investigator of the current study and here is his reply:
"The corresponding manuscript was accepted for publication in early February and will appear any day now. ...We will start a pivotal trial for FDA approval soon. "
Maybe I could build it but I am currently very involved with building my next generation Portable Neuromodulation Stimulator (PoNS) for Neurorehabilitation, incorporating an accelerometer to cue electrical impulses to the tongue.
"that UPDRS part III did not change significantly. "
typical when subjective observations are compared with UPDRS 3 when n=5 and 4 were off any PD meds(?) when tested. somewhat vague.
The other measures used were actually more objective than the UPDRS:
"quantitative measures of forward walking using 9‐axis inertial measurement units (APDM Inc.), and the kinematics of repetitive wrist flexion extension (rWFE) using solid‐state gyroscopes (Motus Bioengineering)"
I don't agree but relatively moot give n = 5.
UPDRS part 3 contains 18 items and 33 scores. done by a qualified MDS, the exam will be much more comprehensive than from an IMU or WFE machine IMO. who uses the latter?
Sharon
The UPDRS of the guy in the video must've been substantially different -- eh?
Considering the cost, the risk and the simplicity, "acute" improvement in gait and bradykinesia is good enough.
"acute" improvement in gait and bradykinesia is good enough."
without substantiation on UPDRS parts 3 and 4?
Waiting for somebody to take care of all the symptoms with one therapy, would be like waiting for Godot.
If somebody offered to tingle my fingertips to stop me from sniffing, I'd take it.
A follow-on to the prior study of the finger tapping glove has now been published here:
frontiersin.org/articles/10...
A group of six patients received treatment for three months and attained a 6 point cumulative improvement in the UPDRS part III. It was stat sig at a modest p =.034, but the treatment group scores were not compared to a placebo group. "These encouraging therapeutic results enable us to properly plan a proof-of-concept study"
By comparison, the CUE study evaluated 12 participants and attained a 12 point average improvement in the UPDRS part III:
charconeurotech.com/wp-cont...
However, it seems they compared patients' performance prior to and then when using this device in one sitting. They did not evaluate results after extended use. This strikes me as a bigger gap in knowledge than the variability in improvement. All patients did show some improvement. It also lacked a placebo group for comparison.
Neither device is commercially available but the Cue is much closer and is recruiting patients for clinical trial:
charconeurotech.com/clinica...
"... reduction of high beta band power over the sensorimotor cortex may suggest noisy vCR is effectively modulating the beta band at the cortical level,..." Whatever that means.
No real conclusions yet, but so far it seems for how modest, inexpensive, and harmless the therapy, the improvement ain't bad? (The video showed some pretty substantial improvement.)
I think this is something that keep an eye on.
Here is what the authors of the finger tapping study have to say by way of introduction. They get into considerable detail in the body of the study.
" Abnormal synchronization of neuronal activity in dopaminergic circuits is related to motor impairment in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Vibrotactile coordinated reset (vCR) fingertip stimulation aims to counteract excessive synchronization and induce sustained unlearning of pathologic synaptic connectivity and neuronal synchrony. Here, we report two clinical feasibility studies that examine the effect of regular and noisy vCR stimulation on PD motor symptoms. Additionally, in one clinical study (study 1), we examine cortical beta band power changes in the sensorimotor cortex. Lastly, we compare these clinical results in relation to our computational findings."
"Abnormal synchronization of neuronal activity in dopaminergic circuits ..." Well, we know that's true. Dr. J calls it overexcited signaling.
"...induce sustained unlearning of pathologic synaptic connectivity and neuronal synchrony." When they use a word like, "unlearning," I disconnect. What do you suppose that means?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebbi...
Hebb's rule
"Cells that fire together wire together... The theory attempts to explain associative or Hebbian learning, in which simultaneous activation of cells leads to pronounced increases in synaptic strength between those cells."
Synaptic strength is a measure of the ability of one neuron to cause another neuron to fire .
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synap...
"In neuroscience, synaptic plasticity is the ability of synapses to strengthen or weaken over time, in response to increases or decreases in their activity"
So "unlearning" refers to weakening the strength of the synaptic connections among sets of neurons. This is accomplished by actuating new patterns of neurons firing.
whew. Hebb's rule. (I should have known 
Well, OK, then.
We bought a revitive with gloves but hubby found putting on the gloves too stressful so they’ve been shelved for a while. However he is now quite a lot calmer so I may have another go. I can put them on him while he watches tv at night
Video is amazing.
video? difficult to believe would be my understatement. looks "staged" to me. no tremors, no stoop, etc. where is his wheel chair? All amazing changes done with a tactor glove? Seriously?
see my review of Charco case study to see how variable this type of intervention can be.
Dear Dr. Crayola,
I, too, find the improvement somewhat amazing, but "staged?" I've noticed you run hot and cold. Sometimes you make very enlightened comments. Other times, not so much.
Here, you've got some overexcited signaling going on in your imagination.
If this is staged, then we've got several people risking their whole career to put a phony video up under Stanford's logo? I don't think so.
If the guy in the video is a phony, then who is he? Is he the doctor conducting the study?
Weren't you banned from making these macro, societal judgments?
Does it work along similar lines to the further advanced wearable Charco Cue 1 device?
Charco Cue 1 videos were realistic in terms of advanced PD.
Unblinded Case study results:
3. Results (n= 12)
3.1 MDS-UPDRS
12 participants underwent MDS-UPDRS assessment, and hence 24 assessments were taken. A mean average of 9.3 points improvement (a decrease in score) was seen across the participants. 3 of the 12 participants improved by more than 15 points, with the largest improvement being 19, and every participant (4) improved by at least 3 points.
Greatest improvement came in "global spontaneity" (measure 3.14). specific baseline/intervention UPDRS scores were provided to assess initial level of PD. six participants were low level PD. 4 were moderate-severe level PD.
improvement results varied quite a bit in the moderate-severe cohort which raises a red flag.
Sharon
EAI Engineering Acoustics Inc., Casselberry, FL website does not show a "tactor glove" for sale which is the only one used by Stanford. Even if you had the gloves, the protocol is well beyond home use.
Sharon
Air travel issues with a Vibrotactile device 
Deep Brain Stimulation
