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. 2016 Aug;22(4):369-78.
doi: 10.1080/13554794.2016.1197951. Epub 2016 Jun 23.

Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus alters frontal activity during spatial working memory maintenance of patients with Parkinson's disease

Jutta S Mayer  1   2 , Joseph Neimat  3 , Bradley S Folley  4 , Sarah K Bourne  3 , Peter E Konrad  3 , David Charles  5 , Sohee Park  1
Affiliations

Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus alters frontal activity during spatial working memory maintenance of patients with Parkinson's disease

Jutta S Mayer et al. Neurocase. 2016 Aug.

Abstract

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) improves the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). The STN may represent an important relay station not only in the motor but also the associative cortico-striato-thalamocortical pathway. Therefore, STN stimulation may alter cognitive functions, such as working memory (WM). We examined cortical effects of STN-DBS on WM in early PD patients using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The effects of dopaminergic medication on WM were also examined. Lateral frontal activity during WM maintenance was greater when patients were taking dopaminergic medication. STN-DBS led to a trend-level worsening of WM performance, accompanied by increased lateral frontal activity during WM maintenance. These findings suggest that STN-DBS in PD might lead to functional modifications of the basal ganglia-thalamocortical pathway during WM maintenance.

Keywords: Parkinson’s disease; Working memory; deep brain stimulation; frontal cortex; functional near-infrared spectroscopy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest

Vanderbilt University has received income in excess of $10,000 from grants or contracts with Medtronic, Allergan, Ipsen, Merz, UCB, and Teva for educational or research programs led by David Charles. David Charles receives income in excess of $10,000 from Medtronic, Allergan, Ipsen, and the Alliance for Patient Access for education and consulting services.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Stimuli and trial design in the spatial delayed-response task.
Figure 2
Figure 2
FNIRS setup. A 3 × 5 probe optode set [8 emitters (red) and 7 detectors (blue) resulting in 22 channels] was placed centrally over the forehead with the middle row extending over the F3 and F4 points according to the international EEG 10–20 system. The statistical map indicates changes in oxyhemoglobin interpolated across channels.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Behavioral performance. (A) Response accuracy in healthy controls (= HC, N = 8) and PD patients (N = 6) who were tested in three conditions. (B) Individual performance in conditions DBS-on/MED-on and DBS-off/MED-on. (C) Individual performance in conditions DBS-off/MED-on and DBS-off/MED-off. Each line represents data of one patient. The same symbols are used for a given patient in Figures 3B and 3C. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Statistical (t) oxyhemoglobin maps for WM maintenance. (A) PD effect: Controls > patients (DBS-off/MED-off), (B) DBS effect: DBS-on/MED-on > DBS-off/MED-on, (C) Medication effect: DBS-off/MED-on > DBS-off/MED-off.
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