Connectomic Deep Brain Stimulation

Connectomic Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) covers this highly efficacious treatment option for movement disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease, Essential Tremor and Dystonia. The book examines its impact on distributed brain networks that span across the human brain in parallel with modern-day neuroimaging concepts and the connectomics of the brain. It asks several questions, including which cortical areas should DBS electrodes be connected in order to generate the highest possible clinical improvement? Which connections should be avoided? Could these connectomic insights be used to better understand the mechanism of action of DBS? How can they be transferred to individual patients, and more. 

This book is suitable for neuroscientists, neurologists and functional surgeons studying DBS. It provides practical advice on processing strategies and theoretical background, highlighting and reviewing the current state-of-the-art in connectomic surgery.

• Written to provide a "hands-on" approach for neuroscience graduate students, as well as medical personnel from the fields of neurology and neurosurgery
• Includes preprocessing strategies (such as co-registration, normalization, lead localization, VTA estimation and fiber-tracking approaches)
• Presents references (key articles, books and protocols) for additional detailed study
• Provides data analysis boxes in each chapter to help with data interpretation

Andreas Horn is the Director of Deep Brain Stimulation Research within the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Director of Connectomic Neuromodulation Research at Massachusetts General Hospital. Furthermore, he leads the network stimulation laboratory in Boston and Berlin (www.netstim.org), where the main aims are to analyze and modulate brain networks that may improve treatment for various brain disorders. Central to the laboratory is the procedure of deep brain stimulation, in which fine electrodes are stereotactically implanted into deep structures of the brain to deliver weak electric pulses to specific structures. A second key concept is the one of the human connectome: A mathematical description of brain regions and their interconnections – in other words, a wiring-diagram of the human brain. By leveraging this concept, the laboratory investigates the impact of focal and multifocal brain stimulation techniques on distributed whole-brain networks. The laboratory leads development of an award-winning and widely used open source software (www.lead-dbs.org) that facilitates these kinds of studies. By developing this software alongside critical methodology, the laboratory was able to combine research on the fields of deep brain stimulation and the human connectome over the last ten years. In doing so, the laboratory has published central work toward establishing a novel and growing field of connectomic deep brain stimulation.