Here you can find abbreviations and acronyms that are frequency used within this collaborative research center.Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a surgical procedure that implants a neurostimulator and electrodes which sends electrical impulses to specified targets in the brain responsible for movement control. The treatment is designed for a range of movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and dystonia, as well as for certain neuropsychiatric conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and epilepsy. The exact mechanisms of DBS are complex and not entirely clear, but it is known to modify brain activity in a structured way.
DBS has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for essential and Parkinsonian tremor and since 1997, and for Parkinson's disease (PD) since 2002. DBS was approved as humanitarian device excemptions for dystonia in 2003, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) in 2009, and approved for epilepsy in 2018. DBS has been studied in clinical trials as a potential treatment for chronic pain, for various affective disorders, including major depression, for Alzheimer's Disease and drug addiction, among other brain disorders. It is one of few neurosurgical procedures that allow blinded studies.
As a first approximation, DBS is thought to mimic the clinical effects of lesioning, likely by attenuating (pathologically elevated) information flow through affected brain networks. Thus, DBS is thought to create an 'informational lesion', which can be switched off by turning off the DBS device, i.e. is largely reversible. This is a strong advantage compared to permanent brain lesions that are also applied to similar targets in similar conditions in the field of ablative stereotactic surgery.
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