Dr. Richardson to present a pallidal biomarker for OCD at CRANIA 2026

At the CRANIA 2026 conference, hosted by the Centre for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application, Dr. Richardson presents “Pallidal alpha activity is a symptom biomarker in obsessive-compulsive disorder.” The talk draws on longitudinal intracranial recordings from sensing-enabled DBS in patients with OCD, using spectral parameterization to separate meaningful oscillatory activity from background. It identifies periodic alpha activity in the anterior external globus pallidus that tracks symptom severity across patients, follows clinical improvement within individuals, and aligns with therapeutic stimulation contacts. Together these findings support a model in which pallidal alpha serves as a circuit-level biomarker of the obsessive-compulsive state and a candidate signal for adaptive DBS.