Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a surgical procedure that implants a neurostimulator and electrodes which sends electrical impulses to specified targets in the brain responsible for movement control. The treatment is designed for a range of movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and dystonia, as well as for certain neuropsychiatric conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or neurological disorders like epilepsy. The exact mechanisms of DBS are complex and not entirely clear, but it is known to modify brain activity in a structured way.
Brodmann area 25 (BA25) is the subgenual area, area subgenualis or subgenual cingulate area in the cerebral cortex of the brain and delineated based on its cytoarchitectonic characteristics.
Pallidotomy is a neurosurgical procedure. It is used to treat Parkinson's disease and some other conditions, often as an alternative to deep brain stimulation. It involves placing a tiny electrical probe in the globus pallidus, one of the basal ganglia of the brain, to damage it. Unilateral pallidotomy can cause side effects including problems with language learning, visuospatial constructional ability, and executive functions. Bilateral pallidotomy is not effective, with many severe side effects.
Helen S. Mayberg, is an American neurologist. Mayberg is known in particular for her work delineating abnormal brain function in patients with major depression using functional neuroimaging. This work led to the first pilot study of deep brain stimulation (DBS), a reversible method of selective modulation of a specific brain circuit, for patients with treatment-resistant depression. As of August 2019, she has published 211 original peer-reviewed articles, 31 books and book chapters, and acted as principal investigator on 24 research grants. Mayberg is coinventor with Andres Lozano of “Method for Treating Depression Mood Disorders and Anxiety Disorders using Neuromodulation,” US patent 2005/0033379A1. St. Jude Medical Neuromodulation licensed her intellectual property to develop Subcallosal Cingulate Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment-Resistant Unipolar and Bipolar Depression for the treatment of severe depression. As of 2018, Mayberg holds positions as Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery and Professor, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, both at Mount Sinai Medical School, and Professor of Psychiatry, Emory University; Emory University Hospital. Since 2018, she has served as Director, Nash Family Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Ablative brain surgery is the surgical ablation by various methods of brain tissue to treat neurological or psychological disorders. The word "Ablation" stems from the Latin word Ablatus meaning "carried away". In most cases, however, ablative brain surgery does not involve removing brain tissue, but rather destroying tissue and leaving it in place. The lesions it causes are irreversible. There are some target nuclei for ablative surgery and deep brain stimulation. Those nuclei are the motor thalamus, the globus pallidus, and the subthalamic nucleus.
David Charles is an American neurologist, professor and vice-chair of neurology, and the medical director of Telehealth at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Neuromodulation is "the alteration of nerve activity through targeted delivery of a stimulus, such as electrical stimulation or chemical agents, to specific neurological sites in the body". It is carried out to normalize – or modulate – nervous tissue function. Neuromodulation is an evolving therapy that can involve a range of electromagnetic stimuli such as a magnetic field (rTMS), an electric current, or a drug instilled directly in the subdural space. Emerging applications involve targeted introduction of genes or gene regulators and light (optogenetics), and by 2014, these had been at minimum demonstrated in mammalian models, or first-in-human data had been acquired. The most clinical experience has been with electrical stimulation.
Alim Louis Benabid is a French-Algerian emeritus professor, neurosurgeon and member of the French Academy of Sciences, who has had a global impact in the development of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders. He became emeritus professor of biophysics at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble in September 2007, and chairman of the board of the Edmond J. Safra Biomedical Research Center in 2009 at Clinatec, a multidisciplinary institute he co-founded in Grenoble that applies nanotechnologies to neurosciences.
The Krembil Research Institute, formerly known as the Toronto Western Research Institute, is an academic medical research institute in Toronto. It is one of the largest research institutes in Canada focusing on human neurological disease.
The mesencephalic locomotor region (MLR) is a functionally defined area of the midbrain that is associated with the initiation and control of locomotor movements in vertebrate species.
Ali R. Rezai is an Iranian-born American neurosurgeon and neuroscientist. His work and research has focused on neuromodulation treatments for patients with neurological and mental health conditions, including neuromodulation techniques such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) through brain chip implants to treat Parkinson's disease tremors, obsessive–compulsive disorder, Alzheimer's disease, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and addiction. Recent research since 2020 has focused on deep brain stimulation for addiction treatment, as well as focused ultrasound to treat tremor, addiction and Alzheimer's disease.
Sridevi Sarma is an American biomedical and electrical engineer known for her work in applying control theory to improve therapies for neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease and epilepsy. She is vice dean for graduate education of the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Computational Medicine, and an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Jerrold Lee Vitek is an American neurologist. He is the Head of the Neurology Department, Director of the Neuromodulation Research Program, and Center Director of the University of Minnesota Udall Center of Excellence for Parkinson's Research. Vitek's clinical interests include movement disorders and evaluation for deep brain stimulation (DBS) and his current research activities focus on Parkinson's disease, dystonia, tremor and deep brain stimulation.
Robert Joseph BuchananKM+ is an American neurosurgeon, psychiatrist, and bioethicist who is best known for his contributions to the field of neuroscience, psychosurgery, and neuroethics. He is an associate professor of neurosurgery at Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin and maintains courtesy associate professor appointments in the school's department of neurology and department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
Alberto Priori is an Italian neurologist, academic, and author. He is a Professor of Neurology at the University of Milan, Director of Neurology 1 Unit at San Paolo Hospital, and the Founder and Coordinator of Aldo Ravelli Center of the University of Milan. He also serves as President of the Neurophysiopatology Techniques Course, and Professor of Postgraduate Schools - Medicine, Healthcare, Dental Medicine at the same University.
Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation (aDBS), also known as Closed Loop Deep Brain stimulation (clDBS), is a neuro-modulatory technique currently under investigation for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Hagai Bergman is an Israeli neuroscientist best known for his work on the basal ganglia and their involvement in movement disorders, especially Parkinson's disease. He is currently the Simone and Bernard Guttman Chair in Brain Research and Professor of Physiology in the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Lead-DBS is an open-source toolbox for reconstructions and modeling of Deep Brain Stimulation electrodes based on pre- and postoperative MRI & CT imaging.
Andreas Horn is a German neuroscientist and Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham. His research has focused on mapping deep brain stimulation outcomes onto networks of the human brain. Horn's work has been featured by media outlets such as CNN, Newsweek or Fox News and he has been considered among the 'World's Highly Cited Researchers' by Clarivate.
Patricia Limousin is a French neurologist recognized for her contributions to the treatment of movement disorders, particularly through deep brain stimulation (DBS). She earned her medical degree from the University of Grenoble and completed her PhD in neuroscience at the University of Lyon I in 1998, focusing on DBS of the subthalamic nucleus as a treatment for Parkinson's disease.
