Objective: To distinguish Parkinson’s disease (PD) subtypes – tremor dominant (TD) and Akinetic-rigid (AR) – by means of local field potentials spectral features recorded from Subthalamic Nucleus (STN).

Background: Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is regarded as an effective method for treating motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Yet, distinctive stimulation protocols for clinical subtypes of PD are still missing, mainly due to the lack of electrophysiological biomarkers that better describe the underlying phenomena.

Method: Intraoperative 60 s STN LFPs were recorded from 30 distinct brain hemispheres from 15 AR and 15 TD patients during rest and active arm movement. Signals were downsampled (1 kHz), band-pass filtered (2-400 Hz) and z-score normalized. The power spectrum density (PSD) was estimated by the Welch method. The mean power (area under the PSD) for EEG frequency bands were calculated for each subtype and compared by paired t-test.

Results: Compared to TD, AR patients showed significantly higher 22-35 Hz mean power (high-Beta) only during rest (p = 0.0137). On the other hand, TD patients showed higher Gamma mean power in both rest and movement conditions (p= 0.0094 and p=0.0324, respectively).

Conclusion: High-Beta recorded from STN distinguished TD and AR Parkinson’s subtypes during rest, while High-Gamma did so in both rest and movement conditions. These data may guide DBS protocols aiming to better control specific PD symptons.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/high-beta-and-high-gamma-power-oscillations-from-subthalamic-nucleus-distinguishes-parkinsons-disease-subtypes/