Bill Nguyen’23 and Nico Petroccione’22Throughout the summer my research partner Bill and I used mathematical modeling to implement a novel technique of deep brain stimulation (DBS). DBS is now a common treatment for Parkinson’s Disease (PD), and through the help of mathematical modeling we are able to uncover new protocols, as well as cut down on costs, time and case studies in search of efficient treatments of PD, or other hard to treat disorders.

Through the conductance-based Hodgkin-Huxley model which model the movement of neurons in our brain, we were able to see how a patient with PD would react to adaptive multi-site DBS. This technique has a feature that has yet to be tried in computational studies, and that is of stimulating both subthalamic nucleus and the globus pallidus external. With the help of computer programs like XPP and MATLAB we were able to model and disrupt Parkinsonian neuronal activity and find interesting insights for future work in the field of computational neuroscience.

Nico was advised by Tom Stojsavljevic, Assistant Professor of Math and Computer Science.

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Pakula Biomedical Fellowship Information