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Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a neurosurgical method which uses high frenquency electrical stimulation of the deep brain nuclei through an electrode inserted in the brain.
Functional neurosurgery is based on fine and accurate brain anatomy. This allows optimal targeting of areas of interest, which can be reached through refined neurosurgical procedures. The clinical progresses led by the Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) method have widely promoted the technique to alleviate severe symptoms of many adult and child diseases (Pakinson’s disease, dystonia, epilepsy, psychiatric diseases…) refractory to classical medical treatments. Nevertheless there is still, and more and more, a need for new brain imaging methods both to define the anatomy (e.g. into the basal ganglia) and to analyze the effects of DBS, notably analyzing the location of electrodes relatively to structures (nuclei and bundles). These aims can be reached through clinical and experimental researches, mainly based on MRI (morphologic and functional) and nuclear medicine (SPECT, PET). The main directions of work could be in 4 domains:
Ш creation of new anatomic databases (nuclei and bundles) with a spatial resolution of a few microns;
Ш integration of multimodal imaging (anatomic MRI, fMRI, DTI, SPECT and PETscan) during planning phases;
Ш creation of new methods to compare the locations of electrodes (intra-individually and inter-individually);
Ш creation of new 3D models of current diffusion (electrically or magnetically induced) into the brain, taking into account the biological characteristics of the anatomic structures interested by the DBS process (tissue structure analysis). |
