News Report | May 27, 2021
New ‘Brain Stress Test’ Evaluates Mental Status Of Those With Parkinson’s Disease By Predicting Hallucination Onset
Scientists are developing a completely new 'brain stress test' for evaluating the mental status of those with Parkinson's disease (PD) that involves awakening the 'ghosts' hidden in specific networks of the brain to predict the onset of hallucinations. This new stress test is a robotics-based approach applying conflicting sensorimotor stimulation, enabling the induction of presence hallucinations (PHs) in a fully controlled and safe manner, and the characterization of a subgroup of individuals with PD with enhanced sensitivity for conflicting sensorimotor stimulation and robot-induced PH. For individuals with PD, hallucinations are disturbing and constitute a major risk factor . . .