Evaluation of the effects of Deep Brain Stimulation in people with Parkinson's Disease analyzing Local Field Potentials and inertial signals

Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most common neurogenerative disorders. It is characterized by motor symptoms, which typically include resting tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, and postural instability. It is also characterized by non-motor symptoms, which include neuropsychiatric, cognitive and autonomic symptoms. The most common therapy available is based on the use of levodopa to reverse the reduction in dopamine production. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an alternative that is used when the side effects of levodopa severely affect the patient's daily life. Clinical assessment of PD is based on rating scales such as the MDS-UPDRS and the Hoehn and Yahr scale. To obtain objective and quantitative measures, inertial wearable sensors are usually introduced. In addition, newer DBS devices allow the recording of local field potentials (LFPs) during stimulation using the implanted leads. These devices offer the opportunity to better understand disease-related brain activity patterns, their evolution over time, and their response to therapeutic treatments. In this context, this thesis investigates the variation of motor performance during disease progression by analyzing inertial and brain signals. To this end, data collection was carried out at the Bellaria Hospital on patients who had undergone DBS surgery. Inertial signals will be analyzed to see how motor performance changes before and after surgery and how it is affected by treatment. The effects on the LFPs will also be analyzed. This analysis is based on the amplitude of the detected peaks of the power spectral density in the beta band (13-35 Hz). Finally, data analysis was performed on a large database of instrumented TUG tasks performed by Parkinson's patients recruited at the Bellaria Hospital during the last two years. Normal ranges are defined for the PD population based on the parameters extracted during the instrumented TUG task.