Researchers Find Way to Help Tourette Syndrome (TS) Patients

The Neurological Institute at University Hospitals Case Medical Center is reporting that Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) has been found to help Tourette Syndrome (TS) patients.

In there study, there were 5 adult TS patients and they were able to decrease the frequency and severity of the characteristic tics in some patients for whom other treatments did not work.

Tourette syndrome usually begins in childhood and the patient will have sudden and repetitive muscle movements as well as vocalizing words over and over. By the time the patient is a young adult, the symptoms have usually decreased in both frequency and severity. But this is not always the case. Some adults, like the participants in this study, have the symptoms become worse instead of better. And no therapy has been able to help them.

The researchers watched these 5 patients over the course of a year and they found that the majority of them had a very significant reduction of their symptoms as well as a much improved quality of life. This is the second study that this team has done in relation to TS and DBS. Back in 2004, they used DBS on a 31 year old man who is a TS patient. As soon as they turned on his DBS almost all of the symptoms disappeared.

DBS has been approved by the FDA for Parkinson's disease, essential tremor and dystonia. It is performed by surgically implanting electrodes in the brain as well as well as a pulse generator, IPG, under the collarbone. The pulse generator is connected to the electrodes by a thin wire under the skin. They then program the IPG to deliver a high frequency stimulation to the area of the brain where the electrodes have been placed

In this study, they placed the electrodes in the region of the brain called the thalamus, which is the region of the brain that is responsible for movement. Before they implanted the electrodes, they used an MRI to get a picture of the participants' brains with the aim being to be able to fine the safest as well as the most direct way to reach the thalamus.