Volume of Tissue Activated in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease from West-Center Region of Colombia Treated with Deep Brain Stimulation

Abstract

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a group of neurological disorders caused by a deficiency of dopamine in a brain structure called Substantia Nigra Reticulata (SNR). The neurosurgical procedure known as Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) of Subthalamic Nucleus (STN) has proved to be an effective treatment for this disease. DBS modulates neural activity with electric fields. However, the mechanisms regulating the therapeutic effects of DBS are not clear, in fact there is not a full knowledge about the voltage distribution generated in the brain by the stimulating electrodes, what is usually named as Volume of Tissue Activated (VTA). VTA is useful to find the optimal parameters of stimulation, that allow the neurosurgeons to get the best clinical outcomes and minimal side effects. In this work, we applied a methodology to estimate the VTA, based on analysis of diffusion tensor images (DTI) of PD patients from the west-center region of Colombia. DTI are used to characterize the conductivity of brain structures relevant in DBS. The results are consistent to similar studies in other populations.