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Non-stationary discharge patterns in motor cortex under subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation
Sabato Santaniello1, Erwin B Montgomery, John T Gale
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD, USA.
Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience
|July 4, 2012
Summary
High-frequency deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) enhances cortical neuronal activation in Parkinson
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Computational Neuroscience
- Systems Neuroscience
Background:
- Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) modulates basal ganglia (BG) activity.
- The impact of STN DBS on upstream cortical activity, especially in Parkinson's disease (PD) models, remains unclear.
- Previous studies show mixed results regarding cortical activation and the influence of DBS parameters.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how STN DBS affects cortical activity patterns and neuronal dependencies in normal and Parkinsonian conditions.
- To determine the influence of different DBS frequencies on these cortical changes.
- To explore the information-theoretic relationship between DBS input and cortical neuron spiking.
Main Methods:
- Utilized point process models to analyze non-stationary activation patterns and inter-neuronal dependencies in motor and sensory cortices.
- Recorded neural activity in non-human primates during STN DBS, both before and after inducing Parkinsonism with MPTP.
- Applied information theory tools (ROC curves, IR) to quantify the predictive power of DBS on cortical spiking.
Main Results:
- High-frequency (HF) STN DBS (≥100 Hz) significantly reduced short-term cortical activation patterns and induced short-latency post-stimulus activation.
- Low-frequency (LF) DBS (≤50 Hz) had minimal effects on these cortical features.
- The predictive modulation of cortical spiking by DBS input increased with stimulation frequency, being significantly higher for HF DBS.
Conclusions:
- HF STN DBS selectively suppresses non-stationary cortical features and enhances neuronal activation, likely through reinforcement mechanisms.
- The findings suggest that HF STN DBS optimizes BG-thalamo-cortical loop function by modulating cortical activity.
- DBS frequency critically influences the impact on cortical processing, with higher frequencies offering greater modulatory effects.
