Deep brain stimulation: current applications and future prospects

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) has proven to be an effective and minimally invasive surgical treatment for a variety of neurological and psychiatric diseases such as Parkinson's Disease, essential tremor, dystonia, Tourette's Syndrome and depression. In contrast to early surgical lesioning procedures, DBS has a considerably lower side-effect rate and is usually reversible. Common targets include nuclei involved in the basal ganglia circuitry as well as its efferent and afferent pathways such as the subthalamic nucleus (STN), the globus pallidus internus (GPi) or the ventral striatal region. Despite the increasing application of DBS, the exact mechanism of action is still matter of debates. Current trials focus on establishing alternative targets, exploring new indications as well as on capturing cortical responses during DBS in order to improve individual stimulation parameters.