University of Maryland Medicine (the University of Maryland Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine) and its Center for Metabolic Imaging and Image-Guided Therapeutics (CMIT) has begun to use MRI-guided focused ultrasound on a deep structure within the brain related to Parkinson’s disease – the globus pallidus.
In the first clinical trial of its kind, researchers from the Departments of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Neurosurgery and Neurology at CMIT are using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to guide ultrasound waves through the intact skin and skull to the globus pallidus. The University of Maryland is one of only two sites in the United States to offer this treatment to Parkinson’s patients.