Vascular changes caused by deep brain stimulation using double-dose gadolinium-enhanced brain MRI

We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 32 patients with medically intractable idiopathic Parkinson's disease who had undergone staged bilateral deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nuclei from January 2007 to May 2011. The vascularture of the patients who received two deep brain stimulations was detected using double-dose gadolinium-enhanced brain MRI. The dimensions of straight sinus, superior sagittal sinus, ipsilateral internal cerebral vein in the thalamic branch and ipsilateral anterior caudate vein were reduced. These findings demonstrate that bilateral deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nuclei affects cerebral venous blood flow.