Gait disturbances are a severe burden for Parkinson’s disease patients, and respond poorly to therapies including deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus. In particular, standard continuous stimulation may prevent dynamic integration of the cortical-subcortical information needed to adapt gait patterns to the environment. We will combine cortical and subcortical recordings, molecular brain imaging, and kinematic measurements in a virtual reality environment to characterize the dynamic cortical-subthalamic neural control of human gait and its derangements during freezing of gait (FOG).

Our setup will also allow us to explore the feasibility of online FOG detection as an important translational use case for new devices that constantly adapt DBS-controlled electrical impulses to gait-related neural signals.