Network effects and pathways in Deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease.

Deep brain stimulation of subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) became a standard therapeutic option in Parkinson's disease (PD), even though the underlying modulated network of STN-DBS is still poorly described. Probabilistic tractography and connectivity analysis as derived from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were performed together with modelling of implanted electrode positions and linked postoperative clinical outcome. Fifteen patients with idiopathic PD without dementia were selected for DBS treatment. After pre-processing, probabilistic tractography was run from cortical and subcortical seeds of the hypothesized network to targets represented by the positions of the active DBS contacts. The …