Program

Executive Summary：
Dr. Chen is an attending neurologist at China Medical University Hospital and Taichung Municipal Geriatric Rehabilitation General Hospital, and Assistant Professor at the Graduate Institute of Statistics and Information Science, National Changhua University of Education. He received his MD from Kaohsiung Medical University, completed neurology residency at Changhua Christian Hospital, and a movement disorders fellowship in 2019. He earned a PhD in 2024 from Chung Shan Medical University, focusing on human genetic biobank analysis. His clinical and research interests include neuroimmunological diseases, Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders, deep brain stimulation, MR-guided focused ultrasound, and ultrasound-guided botulinum toxin therapy. Dr. Chen is Deputy Chief Financial Officer of the Taiwan NeuroImmunology Medical Society, is a member of the Taiwan Movement Disorder Society, and serves on the Evidence-Based Medicine Motor Subcommittee of the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society. He integrates clinical neurology, data science, and genetics to advance precision therapeutics.

Lecture Abstract：
Numient (extended-release carbidopa/levodopa, IPX066) is a novel levodopa formulation designed to provide more continuous dopaminergic stimulation, thereby smoothing motor fluctuations in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Clinically, its pharmacokinetic advantages translate to prolonged “on” time and reduced “off” episodes without increasing troublesome dyskinesia. From a neurophysiological perspective, stable levodopa delivery modulates pathological brain rhythms underlying PD motor symptoms. Excessive beta-band (~13–30 Hz) oscillations in cortico-basal ganglia circuits – a hallmark of the PD off-medication state – are markedly desynchronized by levodopa, correlating with improved bradykinesia and rigidity. Concurrently, treatment shifts network dynamics toward healthier patterns, including relative enhancement of gamma-frequency activity. Levodopa also normalizes aberrant cross-frequency interactions such as beta–gamma phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) in motor cortex, and dampens pathological coherence between cortical and subcortical regions (e.g. suppressing excessive STN–motor cortex synchrony). These insights, derived from STN-local field potential recordings, EEG/MEG, and TMS studies, underscore how interdisciplinary neurophysiology research informs therapy. Importantly, such electrophysiological markers are increasingly viewed as potential biomarkers for treatment personalization. In the future, oscillatory signatures (beta power, PAC, coherence) could be harnessed to monitor Numient’s efficacy in real time or even drive adaptive, biomarker-guided interventions like closed-loop deep brain stimulation.