Desynchronizing the abnormally synchronized neural activity in the subthalamic nucleus: a modeling study

A mathematical model of a target area for deep brain stimulation was used to investigate the effects of electrical stimulation on pathologically synchronized clusters of neurons. In total, three newly developed stimulation techniques based on multisite coordinated reset and delayed feedback were tested and compared with a high-frequency stimulation method that is currently used as a standard stimulation protocol for deep brain stimulation. By modeling both excitatory and inhibitory actions of the electrical stimulation, we revealed the desynchronization impacts of the novel stimulation techniques. This contrasts with standard high-frequency stimulation, which failed to desynchronize the target population and whose inhibitory effects blocked all neuronal activity. We also explored the demand-controlled character of the proposed methods, and demonstrated that the amount of stimulation current required was considerably smaller than that for high-frequency stimulation. These novel stimulation methods appear to be superior to standard high-frequency stimulation techniques, and we propose the methods now be used for deep brain stimulation.