<H1>Good News Travels at the Speed of Dark but it keeps on coming!</h1>

Reader Michael pointed out this article (thank you Michael)

UVa researchers testing focused ultrasound to treat Parkinson's symptoms

The University of Virginia is leading the first effort to use noninvasive focused ultrasound to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

Since 2011, UVa has been a center for research in focused ultrasound, the use of high-intensity sound energy to destroy damaged or diseased tissue. It has proved safe and effective for patients with essential tremor, officials said, providing an alternative to risky brain surgery.

Click Here!

Now researchers say they’re confident it could help treat a range of symptoms in Parkinson’s patients sometimes known as dyskinesia, including tremors and involuntary movements.

“Everybody wants a cure for Parkinson’s, but for the time being, this could be a big breakthrough in symptom management,” said Dr. W. Jeffrey Elias, who has headed several major studies in focused ultrasound.

UVa is collaborating with the University of Maryland — along with centers in Canada and South Korea — to test the effectiveness of the treatment on dozens of patients. Earlier this summer, UVa conducted the first focused ultrasound session on a Parkinson’s patient in the U.S.

Researchers at the University of Maryland conducted another trial one week later, said Dr. Howard M. Eisenberg, chair of the university’s department of neurosurgery.

Patients in the trials will go through several sessions between now and next year, Elias said. Typically, the patients are subjected to focused ultrasound beams for about 10 to 15 seconds at a time. The treatment is essentially painless, though patients have reported discomfort during long sessions.

The point is to interrupt an “abnormal circuit” that forms in Parkinson’s patients, Elias said. Doctors do this by directing more than 1,000 beams of sound deep inside the skull to a part of the brain smaller than a grain of rice.

“We’re able to do the type of treatment that would usually require making a hole in the head and inserting a probe,” Elias said. “We’re able to do this without making an incision in the head.”

Interrupting these abnormal circuits can relieve rigidity and tremors in patients, Eisenberg said.

From Culpeper Star Exponent March 31, 2016