Despite more than 20 years of clinical application, progress in deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat symptoms associated with Parkinson's Disease (PD) and other neurologic disorders has been hindered by a limited understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying therapeutic effects. Mathematical modeling and electrophysiological monitoring have provided insight into the local effects of electrical stimulation on neural tissue. Additionally, functional imaging studies have revealed system-level effects on neural activity across brain regions. However, these techniques fail to bridge the gap between these disparate measurement scales. Thus, it is clear that elucidating the therapeutic mechanisms of DBS will require the application of new analysis methods that provide information on neural activity at both the cellular- and systems-level. This presentation will describe a multidisciplinary bioengineering approach that integrates DBS, electrochemical measurements, fluorescent microscopy, and computational models to characterize changes in neural activity evoked by DBS in a freely moving animal model of PD. In turn, this will enable a deeper understanding of neural activity underlying disease and therapy that can be used to improve the efficacy of DBS.
Posted by: Nathan Galli