First characterized comprehensively by Dr. ]ames Parkinson in 1817, the disease that bears his name has become one of the most prevalent neurological afflictions in the U.S. It is second only to Alzheimer's, affecting more than a million Americans (Backer 2006). Current treatments are largely pharmacological, but a surgical procedure involving a neural implant called Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) has shown promise to be an effective therapy against Parkinson's. This paper will discuss the characteristics of DBS therapy and compare it with the standard drug treatment, L—DOPA. The manifestation of Parkinson's Disease (PD) in each patient is varied, ranging from mild tics to total incapacitation and motor rigidity. However, PD is progressive in nature, and its symptoms in most patients worsen over the years, eventually resulting in total dependence on nursing care. In the worst cases of PD, sufferers seem catatonic, withdrawn physically from the world, totally unmoving and unresponsive. Yet, PD does not affect the higher cognitive centers of the brain, so these patients are stuck in the prison of their frozen bodies, fully aware and conscious of their state. Although the cardinal symptoms of poverty of movement, muscle rigidity, and tremor have been described as far back as Galen in the 3rd century, the etiology of the disease is still unknown to this day. However, there have been a number of treatments directed at reducing the symptoms of PD. By 1960, physicians had discovered that the key feature shared among Parkinsonian patients was deficits in a mass of neuronal cell bodies located in midbrain called the substantia nigra. Meaning ”black substanceq, the substantia nigra synthesizes and secretes a modified amino acid neurotransmitter called dopamine, affecting in particular a pathway in the brain known as the basal ganglia, which among other things, is responsible for motor initiation. Thus, without dopamine, PD patients have trouble activating this motor circuit. In 1967, a huge step in fighting the With effects described as d ”y0-yoq, medication can be a mixed blessing disease was made when a metabolic precursor to dopamine, 3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine (L-DOPA), was found to be effective in treating PD (Cotzias et al 1967). Since then, L—DOPA has been used as the gold standard treatment in reducing the various symptoms of PD, being able to awaken even the most severely immobilized Parkinsonian patients from their dysfunctions. The therapeutic mechanism of L—DOPA is simple: once it has entered into the brain, it is enzymatically converted to dopamine, thus mitigating PD induced deficits in the nigral dopaminergic system. At the same time, L-DOPA's seemingly miraculous successes in reducing motor rigidity have been tempered by its potentially intolerable side effects. With effects described as a qyo-yoq, medication can be a mixed blessing, swinging the patient from a deeply immobile Parkinsonian state to a pathological state of excess. These excesses of movement include involuntary muscular twitching, uncontrolled movements, and pathological euphorias—a once ”happy stateq induced by L—DOPA that ”starts to crack, slip, break down, and crumble...to perversion and decayq (Sacks 1973). Because of the problematic side effects of L—DOPA treatment, many alternative approaches to Parkinson's have been explored in recent years, ranging from dopamine mimicking molecules called agonists (Schapira 2007) to stem cell therapies (Astradsson et al 2008). Deep brain stimulation is another one of these alternative treatments for PD which has grown in popularity in recent years. Developed by Benabid et al. in 1987, DBS is not a dopaminergic or even a pharmacological treatment. Instead of introducing a chemical substrate, DBS involves the implantation of a neural pacemaker deep within the brain, one that modulates the brain circuitry affected by Parkinson's disease much in the way a coronary implant affects the beating of the heart. This is accomplishedby the surgical placement of an electrode within the affected areas of the brain, with wires running out from the skull, down BERKELEY SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL ° TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN INTERACTION ° FALL 2009 ° VOLUME 13 ° ISSUE 1 ° 25