以神經刺激探針來評估腦深層電刺激之有效刺激範圍

Abstract

腦深層電刺激是一種在巴金森氏疾病中治療動作障礙的有效介入療法，其藉由植入刺激電極至視丘下核並給予最適當的刺激參數來達到治療動作障礙之目的。在進行腦深層電刺激手術後，臨床醫師藉由調整刺激參數，例如：電壓、波寬、與頻率來減少巴金森氏疾病的病症與電刺激所產生之副作用。對臨床上而言，在進行腦深層電刺激手術後以有限次數去決定最佳的刺激參數至今仍是一個很大的問題。唯有藉由電腦模型去模擬出有效刺激範圍，方可加速臨床醫師對於最佳化刺激參數的尋找。過去的研究著重於以電腦模型去模擬有效刺激範圍，然而，電腦模型所模擬而得的有效刺激範圍的精確性必須藉由臨床或動物實驗所驗證。本研究之目的為藉由交通大學所自行設計與製造的新型多通道神經刺激微電極（其有16個微電極位於同一電極陣列面，且別於傳統的腦深層刺激電極，其可以產生各式各樣的刺激大小與形狀）植入於動物體中的深層腦組織，吾人欲想藉由在動物實驗中量測電極與電解溶液介面之阻抗，進而整合入電腦模型中到去驗證電腦模型的精確性，並試著討探電腦模型與動物實驗之有效刺激範圍的相關性。

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective intervention to treat motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease by implanting an electrode lead into the subthalamic nucleus with a suitable set of stimulating parameters. After DBS surgeries, the clinicians adjust the stimulating parameters such as voltage, pulse width, and stimulating frequency to reduce Parkinsonian symptoms and side effect. Clinically speaking, it is difficult to identify an optimal set of stimulating parameters within a finite number of post surgeries DBS programming sessions. One way to speed up this process is to use the volume of tissue activated (VTA) as generated by the computational models-- VTA can be used by clinicians as guides to speed up their stimulating parameters search. Previous works have focused on computing VTA based on the computational models. In this thesis, preliminary results of comparison the computational models with the animal models using neural probes are presented.