Category: Surgical Therapy: Parkinson's Disease
Objective: To examine the use of a multidirectional micro electrode during Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) in 9 patients.
Background: Micro-Electrode recordings (MER) play an important role during functional neurosurgeries by improving the accuracy of lead placement. On the other hand using MER may increase risk for complications such as deep vein thrombosis due to elongation of operation time and hemorrhage, especially when multiple microelectrodes are used.
There is a longstanding debate whether benefit from MER outweighs these potential risks. A multidirectional micro-electrode (AlphaProbe) was developed by Alpha-Omega inc (Nazereth, Israel) in order to increase spatial sampling of a single electrode thus decreasing side effects.
Method: During routine Subthalamic nucleus (STN) DBS surgeries for PD patients we recorded spiking and local field potentials (LFPs) activity from the STN using AlphaProbe that include a central micro-electrode and 4 lateral micro-probes located 2.75mm above the microelectrode tip, and equally distributed on 0.5mm metal shaft.
Results: Recordings of the AlphaProbe preserved background and low frequency activity, but did not show meaningful differences between the different directional contacts, or between these and the micro-tip, in these activity ranges.
No side effects such as hemorrhage or infection occurred in our cohort.
Conclusion: The use of multi-directional microelectrode recordings during DBS surgeries in our cohort was safe but was unable to record directional activity from micro tips.
Possible explanations include local neuronal destruction during the insertion of the micro tip. In addition a possible crosstalk inhibited recordings from the directional micro electrodes.
A different design of the AlfaProbe should resolve these technical caveats in order to examine the potential benefits of a multi-directional micro electrode.
This work has been presented at the 4th International Brain Stimulation Conference, Charelston SC, USA . December 2021
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
A. Socher, I. Strauss, A. Tankus, A. Hillel, G. Maayan, G. Morris, H. Bergman, T. Gurevich. Five for the price of one- A multidirectional micro-electrode recordings for DBS Surgery [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2022; 37 (suppl 2). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/five-for-the-price-of-one-a-multidirectional-micro-electrode-recordings-for-dbs-surgery/. Accessed May 9, 2025.« Back to 2022 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/five-for-the-price-of-one-a-multidirectional-micro-electrode-recordings-for-dbs-surgery/