STN area detection using K-NN classifiers for MER recordings in Parkinson patients during neurostimulator implant surgery

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) applies electric pulses into the subthalamic nucleus (STN) improving tremor and other symptoms associated to Parkinson's disease. Accurate STN detection for proper location and implant of the stimulating electrodes is a complex task and surgeons are not always certain about final location. Signals from the STN acquired during DBS surgery are obtained with microelectrodes, having specific characteristics differing from other brain areas. Using supervised learning, a trained model based on previous microelectrode recordings (MER) can be obtained, being able to successfully classify the STN area for new MER signals. The K Nearest Neighbours (K-NN) algorithm has bee…