Orientation selective deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus in rats

• Published in: NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Vol. 213; p. 116750
• Main Authors: Lehto, Lauri J., Canna, Antonietta, Wu, Lin, Sierra, Alejandra, Zhurakovskaya, Ekaterina, Ma, Jun, Pearce, Clairice, Shaio, Maple, Filip, Pavel, Johnson, Matthew D., Low, Walter C., Gröhn, Olli, Tanila, Heikki, Mangia, Silvia, Michaeli, Shalom
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.06.2020; Elsevier Limited; Elsevier
• Subjects: Animals; Basal ganglia; Body temperature; Brain mapping; Deep brain stimulation; Deep Brain Stimulation - methods; Electric fields; Electrical stimuli; Electrodes; Electrodes, Implanted; Experiments; fMRI; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Movement disorders; Neuroimaging; Orientation selective; Paradigms; Parkinson's disease; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Respiration; Sensorimotor system; Solitary tract nucleus; Subthalamic nucleus; Subthalamic Nucleus - physiology; Thalamus; United States > US; Deep brain stimulation; fMRI; Orientation selective; family wise error; fast-spin-echo; region of interest; Subthalamic nucleus; paraformaldehyde; multiband SWeep Imaging with Fourier Transformation; false discovery rate; Parkinson’s disease; Movement disorders; functional magnetic resonance imaging
• ISSN: 1053-8119; 1095-9572
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116750

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has become an important tool in the management of a wide spectrum of diseases in neurology and psychiatry. Target selection is a vital aspect of DBS so that only the desired areas are stimulated. Segmented leads and current steering have been shown to be promising additions to DBS technology enabling better control of the stimulating electric field. Recently introduced orientation selective DBS (OS-DBS) is a related development permitting sensitization of the stimulus to axonal pathways with different orientations by freely controlling the primary direction of the electric field using multiple contacts. Here, we used OS-DBS to stimulate the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in healthy rats while simultaneously monitoring the induced brain activity with fMRI. Maximal activation of the sensorimotor and basal ganglia-thalamocortical networks was observed when the electric field was aligned mediolaterally in the STN pointing in the lateral direction, while no cortical activation was observed with the electric field pointing medially to the opposite direction. Such findings are consistent with mediolateral main direction of the STN fibers, as seen with high resolution diffusion imaging and histology. The asymmetry of the OS-DBS dipolar field distribution using three contacts along with the potential stimulation of the internal capsule, are also discussed. We conclude that OS-DBS offers an additional degree of flexibility for optimization of DBS of the STN which may enable a better treatment response. [Display omitted] •fMRI was measured simultaneously with deep brain stimulation in healthy rats.•Orientation selective stimulation was applied to the subthalamic nucleus.•Maximum activation when the electric field is pointed laterally.•Results correspond to the main axonal direction in the subthalamic nucleus.