OSCR

Vestibular nucleus stimulation for ameliorating locomotor dynamics in a Parkinsonian mouse model.

Overview

Authors: Johannes Hartig1,2, Maximilian Uwe Friedrich1, Jérémy Signoret-Genest2,3, Maria Gruber2, Sawako Tabuchi1,2, Hamidreza Alimohammadi2, Max Leuschner1, Nina Schöneberg2, Robert Peach1, Dennis Doll2,4, Tobias Petschner1, Amélie Neumann1, Susanne Knorr1, Jens Volkmann1, Philip Tovote2,3, Chi Wang Ip1
ORCID iDs: Johannes Hartig, Maximilian Uwe Friedrich, Jérémy Signoret-Genest, Max Leuschner, Robert Peach, Dennis Doll, Tobias Petschner, Jens Volkmann, Philip Tovote, Chi Wang Ip
  1. Department of Neurology, University Hospital Wuerzburg,Wuerzburg, Germany
  2. Institute of Clinical Neurobiology, University Hospital Wuerzburg,Wuerzburg, Germany
  3. Center for Mental Health, University Hospital Wuerzburg,Wuerzburg, Germany
  4. Indoc Research Europe gGmbH, Mainz, Germany
Institutions: Universitätsklinikum Würzburg (Germany)
Journal: Nature communications, volume 17, issue 1, article 7772
Dates: received 29 January 2025; accepted 17 July 2026; published online 4 August 2026
Type: Research article · Language: English
License: CC BY
Identifiers: DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-76183-2 · PMID 42552316 · PMCID PMC13439372 · OpenAlex W7172424495
Open access: gold, a free copy (OpenAlex)
Status: code on request
Categories: mouse (organism), Parkinson's (population), systems (subfield)
Methods: Connectivity, Statistics, Smoothing, state filtering, decompositions, Machine learning, Preprocessing, Spectral & time-frequency, Evoked potentials, fMRI & imaging, Single-unit activity, calcium imaging
Keywords: Parkinson's disease, Basal ganglia
MeSH: Deep Brain Stimulation*, Locomotion*, Parkinson Disease*, Vestibular Nuclei*, Animals, Disease Models, Animal, Gait, Male, Mice, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Mice, Transgenic, Neurons, Optogenetics, Vesicular Glutamate Transport Protein 2 (* major topic)
Topic: Vestibular and auditory disorders (Neurology, Neuroscience), according to OpenAlex
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (424778381-TRR 295 A01, A06, B06, Z01); Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Klinische Forschung, Universitätsklinikum Würzburg (S-506, N-362)
Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 92 references in the paper

Abstract

Postural and locomotor dysfunction represent axial symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD), which remain poorly treated by medication and deep brain stimulation. Whilst non-invasive neuromodulation of the vestibular system via the vestibular nucleus complex (VNC) offers a novel therapeutic avenue, the underlying circuits are still poorly characterized. Here we show that the mouse VNC feeds extensive Vglut2-defined projections into striato-thalamo-subthalamic and caudal medulla motor hubs and receives substantial input from the sensorimotor cortex. Optogenetic activation of excitatory VNC neurons at sub-symptomatic intensities increased cFos-based activity in basal ganglia-associated and brainstem motor targets. Unbiased pose dynamics and motion analysis respectively showed enhancement of behavioural modularity and locomotion with threshold-level stimulation. In a mouse model of PD, the latter further favored naturalistic gait patterns through improved motor coordination. Our data identify excitatory VNC processes as candidates for therapeutic targeting of axial motor dysfunction in the context of PD.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper says that its authors' code is available on request: it was not published with the paper, so there is nothing to verify.

Code availability

Custom codes are available from the corresponding author(s) upon request.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Tracing map

A tracing map links a paper to the code its authors published: this paper has none (its code is available on request), so it has no map.

Data

Datasets cited

Data availability

The data generated in this study are provided in the Supplementary Information/Source Data file. The KPMS model is publicly available in the zenodo database under (10.5281/zenodo.20810587). Source data are provided with this paper.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 16 authors, 2 keywords, 14 MeSH terms, 2 funders, 91 references.

Cite

This paper

Hartig, J., Friedrich, M. U., Signoret-Genest, J., Gruber, M., Tabuchi, S., Alimohammadi, H., Leuschner, M., Schöneberg, N., Peach, R., Doll, D., Petschner, T., Neumann, A., Knorr, S., Volkmann, J., Tovote, P., & Ip, C. W. (2026). Vestibular nucleus stimulation for ameliorating locomotor dynamics in a Parkinsonian mouse model. Nature communications, 17(1), 7772. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76183-2

BibTeX

@article{hartig2026vestibular,
author = {Hartig, Johannes and Friedrich, Maximilian Uwe and Signoret-Genest, Jérémy and Gruber, Maria and Tabuchi, Sawako and Alimohammadi, Hamidreza and Leuschner, Max and Schöneberg, Nina and Peach, Robert and Doll, Dennis and Petschner, Tobias and Neumann, Amélie and Knorr, Susanne and Volkmann, Jens and Tovote, Philip and Ip, Chi Wang},
title = {{Vestibular nucleus stimulation for ameliorating locomotor dynamics in a Parkinsonian mouse model}},
journal = {Nature communications},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
volume = {17},
number = {1},
pages = {7772},
publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},
issn = {2041-1723},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-76183-2},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76183-2},
pmid = {42552316},
pmcid = {PMC13439372}
}

RIS

TY - JOUR
AU - Hartig, Johannes
AU - Friedrich, Maximilian Uwe
AU - Signoret-Genest, Jérémy
AU - Gruber, Maria
AU - Tabuchi, Sawako
AU - Alimohammadi, Hamidreza
AU - Leuschner, Max
AU - Schöneberg, Nina
AU - Peach, Robert
AU - Doll, Dennis
AU - Petschner, Tobias
AU - Neumann, Amélie
AU - Knorr, Susanne
AU - Volkmann, Jens
AU - Tovote, Philip
AU - Ip, Chi Wang
TI - Vestibular nucleus stimulation for ameliorating locomotor dynamics in a Parkinsonian mouse model
T2 - Nature communications
J2 - Nat Commun
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/04
VL - 17
IS - 1
SP - 7772
SN - 2041-1723
PB - Nature Publishing Group
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-76183-2
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76183-2
LA - en
ER -

CSL-JSON

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