Karen Dandurant, [email protected] PORTSMOUTH – People suffering from neurological brain disorders face heartbreaking circumstances, and sometimes the proposed fix can be equally terrifying – brain surgery. Each year, 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. About 7 million people in the U.S. have essential tremor. Two hundred fifty thousand Americans suffer from dystonia. All three conditions involve involuntary/uncontrolled movements. For people diagnosed with one of these disorders, uncontrolled movements are a daily frustration – even the simplest things like brushing our teeth or sipping water can be impossible. At Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, neurosurgeon Dr. Joshua Aronson, who leads the DH functional neurosurgery program, is spearheading a less frightening method of brain surgery, and they are the first hospital in New England to use the procedure. Robotic deep brain stimulator (DBS) surgery is a minimally invasive procedure that involves the use of a small, frameless robot to precisely place the DBS into the brain during either robotic awake DBS surgery or asleep real-time MRI-guided DBS surgery. He performs 50 to 60 of these procedures every year, which is among the top 10% of centers nationally by volume.