Effects of deep brain stimulation amplitude on the basal-ganglia-thalamo-cortical network

Previous studies indicate that the effectiveness of deep brain stimulation (DBS) is dependent on the stimulus parameters and the purpose of this study is to examine the effects of DBS amplitude on the basal-ganglia-thalamo-cortical (BG-TC) network activity through a computational model. Our results indicate that the relation between DBS amplitudes and TC relay reliability is nonmonotonic, effective amplitude-dependent DBS alleviate motor symptoms by regularizing firing pattern of BG output neurons and synaptic release of the network, thereby improving TC relay fidelity. This work demonstrates that the amplitude of DBS also plays an important role in the treatment of motor symptoms of PD.