Francisco Flores, PhD, an investigator in the Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital an instructor in Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, is lead author of a recently published paper in Brain Stimulation; Electrographic Seizures During Low-Current Thalamic Deep Brain Stimulation in Mice
Emery Brown, MD, PhD, is senior author of the study.
What was the question you set out to answer with this study?
Central thalamic deep brain stimulation (CT-DBS) is currently in Phase 1 clinical trials as a potential treatment for patients in minimally conscious states, with the primary goal of recovering levels of induced consciousness.
This technique has also demonstrated the ability to awaken animals from anesthesia, and to enhance cognitive states in awake animals
However, CT-DBS can also trigger electrographic seizures such as spike-wave discharges or poly-spike-wave trains (PSWT).
In our study, we implanted mice with electrodes to deliver CT-DBS at different frequencies while recording electroencephalogram( EEG) and performed systematic titration procedure to find the maximum stimulation current that will not result in a seizure.
Our goal was to minimize the risk of inducing seizures.
What Did You Find?
Our study found a small but significant probability of CT-DBS-inducing a type of seizures called poly-spike-wave trains (PWST) in 10 out of 12 mice, even after titration and at relatively low currents. EEG should be closely monitored for electrographic seizures when performing CT-DBS in both clinical and research settings.
