How the brain controls walking in Parkinson's disease
Official title: Cortical basal ganglia network dynamics during human gait control
Funded at University of California, San Francisco · NIH-11252273 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project records brain signals from people with Parkinson's disease to learn how brain circuits start, sustain, and change walking.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of California, San Francisco NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (San Francisco, United States) |
| Project start | January 15, 2023 |
| Project end | December 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $347,402 |
| NIH project number | 5R01NS130183-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11252273 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are people with Parkinson's disease who have gait difficulties and who have, or are eligible for, implanted bidirectional sensing and stimulating devices in motor cortex and the globus pallidus.
✕Less likely to help
People without Parkinson's, those without gait symptoms, or those who cannot or will not have brain implants are unlikely to benefit from participation.
What this research studies
You would have recordings taken from sensors placed in both motor cortex and a deep brain area called the globus pallidus while you start walking, walk continuously, and adapt your steps. The team will study about ten people with Parkinson's who have bidirectional sensing and stimulating devices, collecting data both in the lab and during everyday activities using accelerometers. They will compare walking when medicines and brain stimulation are on or off to find patterns linked to good and bad gait. The goal is to decode the brain rhythms that control gait so therapies can be better timed to improve walking.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to new brain-stimulation strategies that reduce freezing and other gait problems in Parkinson's disease.
How similar studies have gone: Previous studies have recorded movement-related brain signals and used them to guide adaptive deep brain stimulation for tremor, but applying similar recording-and-stimulation methods continuously to gait is relatively new.
Where this research is happening
-
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Wang, Doris Du — University of California, San Francisco
- Study coordinator: Wang, Doris Du
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.