Objective: To explore voluntary movement related neuronal activity in the subthalamic nucleus in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Background: How the human basal ganglia processes information in generation of movement is still largely unknown.

Methods: 17 PD patients (M:7; F:10) who underwent STN deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinsonian symptoms were studied.Their mean age was 58.5±5.4 years and mean disease duration was 6.9±3.6 years. Microelectrode recordings in the STN and EMG recording on the contralateral limbs to surgery were simultaneously performed.Patients performed at least 10 self-paced wrist extension movements at 10 sec intervals during the recordings. All patients were trained to perform the task before surgery. Single-unit analysis with mean neuronal firing rate and coefficient of variation (CV) of inter-spike interval (ISI) were calculated.Power spectral analysis was used to evaluate neuronal oscillation patterns.Based on the movement onset, four periods were determined: baseline (2 s), pre-movement (3 s), movement execution and post-movement (2 s). ANOVA and Bonferroni test were performed to compare the change of mean firing rate and CV of neurons among four periods of movement.

Results: 119 neurons were identified from 21 STN.Of these neurons, 38.7% were neurons (n=46) with β oscillation at range of 13∼30 Hz (mean 21.0 ± 5.1 Hz). Of these ß oscillatory neurons, 43.5% (n=20) were related wrist movement. 26.1% (n=12) were desynchronized, showing reduced firing rate, and 17.0% (n=8) were synchronized, showing increased firing rate. Bonferroni test showed that there were significant changes of mean firing rate between baseline and movement execution in neurons desynchronized (37.5±7.6 Hz vs 20.4±5.2 Hz, n=8) or synchronized (39.7±7.3 Hz vs 53.9±9.5 Hz, n=6) during movement. Furthermore, these movement related neurons were localized in the dorsal portion of the STN.

Conclusions: These preliminary data support the view that the STN ß oscillatory neurons are modulated with the execution of self-paced movement. The desynchronization or synchronization of the STN ß oscillatory activity might play a role in whether a movement is facilitated or suppressed. Moreover, the localizations of the movement related ß oscillatory neurons is within the dorsal portion of the STN, adding to the evidence that this is the motor part of the STN.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/movement-related-beta-oscillatory-activity-during-self-paced-wrist-movement-in-the-human-subthalamic-nucleus/