Mice and rats with a condition that mimics Parkinson’s disease regain the ability to walk when they’re treated with a device delivering electrical stimulation to the spinal cord, US and Swedish researchers report.

“We see an almost immediate and dramatic change in the animal’s ability to function when the device stimulates the spinal cord,” Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, from Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, said in a statement.

People with Parkinson’s disease currently rely on treatment with drugs that counteract dopamine depletion in the brain, the underlying cause of the disorder. Some patients also benefit from deep brain stimulation, but this requires precisely placing electrodes in a particular region of the brain. An external device, not requiring brain surgery, would be a major advance.

Nicolelis explained that the device they’re testing “is easy to use, significantly less invasive than other alternatives to medication, such as deep brain stimulation, and has the potential for widespread use in conjunction with medications typically used to treat Parkinson’s disease.”

In the study, reported in the research journal Science, spinal cord stimulation with the device restored locomotion in lab animals in which dopamine had been depleted.

The functional improvement was accompanied by a restoration of neuronal activity similar to the patterns normally seen with movement initiation.

If the safety and efficacy of the stimulation device can be verified in humans, Nicolelis believes that nearly all patients with Parkinson’s disease could benefit.

SOURCE: Science, March 20, 2009.