Model-Based Analysis of Brain Stimulation and Recording

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY Intracranial recording and stimulation of the human brain are powerful clinical tools that form the basis of wide- ranging neuromodulation therapies. However, for all of the clinical successes of technologies like deep brain stimulation (DBS), numerous scientific questions remain unanswered on the underlying biophysics that dictate the clinical responses. Therefore, the goal of this project is to apply the latest advances in computational modeling to analysis of the highest quality and highest impact clinical research datasets. The key questions we plan to address are: 1) What do we record from the electrodes?, and 2) What do we stimulate with the electrodes? The general approaches we plan to use include: 1) Patient-specific field potential models, which are coupled to experimental electrophysiology recordings, to dissect the neural activity patterns underlying the signals, and 2) Patient-specific pathway-activation models, which are coupled to quantitative behavioral and/or electrophysiological measurements, to dissect the neural pathways that are directly stimulated and subsequently responsible for the behavioral effects of stimulation. We then use knowledge gained from those analyses to support the integration of advanced scientific datasets into the prospective surgical planning of electrode(s) placement in clinical studies that are focused on developing new neuromodulation therapies and/or testing novel device technology. These surgical planning efforts are facilitated by our interactive group- based holographic visualization framework, HoloSNS. As such, the overall goal of our work is to directly link the worlds of basic neuroscience and clinical neuromodulation, via detailed computational models, to better understand stimulation and recording in the human brain.