Author response: Deep brain stimulation improves restless legs syndrome in patients with Parkinson disease

Abstract

I thank Marques et al. for the interest in our study,1 the clarification, and the thoughtful comments. Their study reported that patients with Parkinson disease (PD) with postoperative emergence of restless legs syndrome (RLS) had higher preoperative and postoperative dopamine agonist (DA) doses, and had a lower percentage of DA reduction after deep brain stimulation (DBS),2 not “more significant reduction” as misinterpreted from our article.1 This underscores the controversy surrounding this issue since there are reports of RLS emergence after DBS in patients with PD with greater reduction of dopaminergic therapy,3 less reductions,2 and no correlation with degree of medication reduction.1 We thank Marques et al. for bringing attention to the complexity of this topic, and the call for further research in this area that might shed light on the effects of DBS on RLS symptoms and the mechanisms of RLS in general.