Professor Stephan Chabardes, neurosurgeon at Clinatec (Grenoble), presented, Friday September 6, at the 20th World Congress of Stereotaxic and Functional Neurosurgery in Chicago (WSSFN), unprecedented results obtained using infrared light (more precisely near infrared, NIR) in patients with Parkinson’s disease, a first.
While this pathology is due to a deficit in the brain’s production of dopamine, his team discovered that this light, transported 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, “are invigorated by this light energy, it is assumed, because they produce dopamine again”explains Professor Chabardes. The optical fiber is connected to a laser box, implanted on the surface of the skull. “This work follows several years of animal research in the Clinatec laboratories, 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 people, with the first half receiving infrared stimulation while receiving oral L-dopa treatment, and the second half taking the medication alone. Two more patients are expected to be enrolled this fall. “We chose people between 30 and 60 years old who were still at an early stage of the disease”explains Mr. Chabardes. “We must remain cautious, because we do not yet know whether this effect is sustainable or whether these cells will quickly become exhausted.”he continues. “However, the progress is visible and has greatly relieved the patients concerned [tremblements, raideur…]. This is the first time that we have observed a stabilization of the disease.” As a reminder, it was in Grenoble that in 1987, under the leadership of the neurosurgeon Alim Louis Benabid and the neurologist Pierre Pollak, the first hope of treating Parkinson’s disease was born 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 team that is both creative and serious”she notes. “Dark Matter Cells” [environ 400 000 neurones] are particularly fragile in humans and we do not know why. On the other hand, when Parkinson’s disease is diagnosed, we know that 70% of them are at a standstill and no longer produce dopamine,” explains Dr. Karachi. The Grenoble approach seems all the more interesting to her because“It stops the worsening of the disease, but also reactivates the production of dopamine.”
