Professor Stephan Chabardes, neurosurgeon at Clinatec (Grenoble), presented on Friday, September 6, at the 20thmy World Congress of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery in Chicago (WSSFN), unprecedented results were obtained using infrared light (more precisely near infrared, NIR) in patients with Parkinson’s disease, for the first time.
Although this pathology is due to a deficit in the brain production of dopamine, his team discovered that this light, transmitted by optical fiber to the center of the brain, acts on the photoreceptors of the mitochondria of the cells of the substantia nigra. The latter, which are progressively affected in the degenerative process of the disease, “This light energy is supposed to revitalize them because they produce dopamine again.”Professor Chabardes explains. The optical fibre is connected to a laser box implanted on the surface of the skull. “This work is the result of several years of research on animals in the Clinatec laboratories, conducted by Dr. Cécile Moro and Professor John Mitrofanis. » The study is now awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
“A study that is both creative and serious”
The clinical trial involved twelve subjects: the first half were stimulated by infrared radiation while receiving oral treatment with L-dopa, the second half took the drugs alone. Two more patients are expected to be included this autumn. “We chose people between 30 and 60 years old who were still in an early phase of the disease”explains Chabardes. “We need to be cautious, because we don’t yet know whether this effect will be long-lasting or whether these cells will quickly become exhausted.”continues. “However, progress is visible and has provided enormous relief to affected patients. [tremblements, raideur…]. This is the first time we have seen a stabilization of the disease. » Let us remember that it was in Grenoble where, in 1987, under the direction of the neurosurgeon Alim Louis Benabid and the neurologist Pierre Pollak gave rise to the first hope of treating Parkinson’s disease with deep brain stimulation (DBS), which has since become a standard treatment used by around 250,000 patients worldwide.
Present in Chicago, neurosurgeon Carine Karachi, from the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, is enthusiastic. “This spectacular study comes from a creative and serious team”points out. “Dark matter cells” [environ 400 000 neurones] They are particularly fragile in humans and we don’t know why. On the other hand, when a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is made, we know that 70% of them stop and no longer produce dopamine. explains Dr. Karachi. The Grenoble approach seems all the more interesting to him since“It stops the disease from getting worse, but it also reactivates dopamine production.”
