Start website main content

  • Istituto di BioRobotica

New frontiers in deep brain stimulation: AI algorithms to monitor and predict neural activity and symptoms of Parkinson's disease

The study published in Npj Parkinson's disease is a collaboration between the BioRobotics Institute of the Sant'Anna School and the Parkinson's Center of the ASST Gaetano Pini-CTO

Publication date: 17.07.2025
Studio su Parkinson_immagine generata con AI
Back to Sant'Anna Magazine

Predicting the progression of Parkinson's disease by directly reading brain activity, for timely and personalized therapeutic intervention. This is the main result of a study published in the journal Npj Parkinson's disease, part of the Nature group, which saw the collaboration between the BioRobotics Institute of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa and the Parkinson's Center of the ASST Gaetano Pini-CTO in Milan. Thanks to new artificial intelligence algorithms and innovative brain stimulators, the study makes it possible to monitor and predict the neural activity and symptoms of Parkinson's disease. A new algorithm has been presented that applies artificial intelligence techniques to predict the evolution of brain signals in patients with deep brain stimulation (DBS) who are constantly monitored at home.

"We can now ‘read the future’ of Parkinson's disease, estimating its clinical evolution a week in advance and intervening promptly on neuromodulation therapy to make it more effective. This result is very important for fully exploiting the new adaptive deep brain stimulation strategies, which our Center is among the first in the world to test," said Prof. Ioannis U. Isaias, director of the Parkinson's and Parkinsonism Center at ASST Gaetano Pini-CTO.

 

The study was carried out in collaboration with the group led by Alberto Mazzoni, associate professor at the Biorobotics Institute of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies. “I am very happy with this result,” said Prof. Mazzoni, who led the study together with Prof. Isaias, "as it translates our research into the development of new engineering methods for neural signal analysis into immediate clinical use. I am also particularly pleased because the main authors of this work, Dr. Salvatore Falciglia and Dr. Laura Caffi, are young researchers engaged in a PhD program in Biorobotics at the Sant'Anna School, but working in an international context. This research project is in fact co-supervised not only by Prof. Isaias, but also by Dr. Chiara Palmisano of the University of Würzburg, Germany."

A fundamental contribution has also been made by the Pezzoli Foundation for Parkinson's Disease, promoter and partner of research activities at the Parkinson's Center of the ASST Gaetano Pini-CTO in Milan. “Our commitment to patients translates into concrete projects to improve care, from preventive therapies to the most technologically advanced therapies,” says Prof. Gianni Pezzoli, president of the Foundation.

The patients involved in this study received a new experimental stimulator (AlphaDBS -Newronika) during surgery performed by Prof. Marco Locatelli's team at the Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda, one of the neurosurgery departments with which the Parkinson's Center has developed a network of collaborations in the Lombardy region. This network also involves the ASST Santi Paolo e Carlo and the IRCCS San Gerardo in Monza, in order to cope with the high number of operations required for their patients. The Parkinson's Center in Milan welcomes over 7,000 patients every year, with more than 1,500 new admissions.


Cover image generated with AI