STIM A-T Pilot Study
Research Project information
Principal researcher: Dr Caroline Blanchard
Institute: University of Nottingham
Cost: £20,270
Completion date: February 2024
This project was part of our sandpit funding. Sandpit funding is a small pot of money that we invest in both an unmet research challenge in A-T and in researchers that are new to A-T. We do this to get a new idea off the ground and to encourage new people to the field of A-T research.
Project Overview and Outcome
Involuntary movements, such as muscle spasms and tremors, greatly affect daily activities and quality of life for people with A-T. Current treatment options are limited. Dr Caroline Blanchard and the team at Nottingham wanted to see if stimulating a nerve in the wrist called the median nerve could reduce unwanted involuntary movements in individuals with A-T. This pilot study aimed to show the feasibility and tolerability of, and provide preliminary evidence of the effect of, median nerve stimulation (MNS) delivered via a ‘watch-like’ device worn on the wrist, for reducing unwanted involuntary movements in people with A-T.
The team recruited five young adult participants for this pilot study, of whom four had classic A-T and one had a condition that overlaps with A-T called AOA-1. All participants had involuntary movements in addition to ataxia. The team firstly undertook interviews with the participants about how the involuntary movements affected their lives, and what benefit they would hope to get from a non-invasive stimulation treatment. They then did a series of tests where they asked the participants to do a range of movement and thinking tasks, with the MNS stimulation device switched on and switched off. They filmed the participants while they were doing these tasks. The team are currently analysing the videos to look for reduced number of unwanted movements with the device switched on. It is a small sample size therefore a clear affect is not expected to be seen initially. They found that the device was well tolerated by participants and there were no safety concerns. Based on this data they now plan to apply for funding for a larger clinical trial to find evidence that this approach works as a treatment for unwanted movements in A-T and related conditions.
What next?
Through this study the team have now leveraged additional £20,000 funding from the MRC / EPSRC NeuroMod+ funding stream for a project to refine the AI-based analysis of movement disorders in A-T. This work, together with the STIM A-T pilot data, will be used to support a grant application for a larger trial of the device, with both efficacy and mechanistic study objectives.
