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64th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

26 - 29 May 2013, Düsseldorf

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Neuronal single unit activity in the globus pallidus internus differs between dystonia and Tourette's syndrome

Meeting Abstract

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  • Mihai Manu - Departmet of Neurosurgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany
  • Mesbah Alam - Departmet of Neurosurgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany
  • Kerstin Schwabe - Departmet of Neurosurgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany
  • Hans H. Heissler - Departmet of Neurosurgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany
  • H.-Holger Capelle - Departmet of Neurosurgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany
  • Joachim K. Krauss - Departmet of Neurosurgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. 64. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC). Düsseldorf, 26.-29.05.2013. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2013. DocMI.04.09

doi: 10.3205/13dgnc309, urn:nbn:de:0183-13dgnc3091

Published: May 21, 2013

© 2013 Manu et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Objective: Altered processing in the basal ganglia has been described both in dystonia and Tourette’s syndrome (TS). Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the globus pallidus internus (GPi) is a standard treatment for dystonia, and has been also successfully used to alleviate tics in TS. In this study we evaluated possible differences in neuronal discharge rates and patterns in the GPi of patients with dystonia or TS.

Method: Nine patients with dystonia (5 men and 4 women, mean age 52 years; one with secondary dystonia and eight with primary dystonia) and six patients with TS (2 men and 4 women, mean age 30 years) were studied during functional stereotactic neurosurgical operations for implantation of DBS electrodes. All surgery was performed under general anaesthesia. Single-unit activity recordings in the GPi were obtained during routine microelectrode recording and mapping to delineate nuclear borders and to identify the sensorimotor subregions.

Results: Based on comparison of dispersion of interspike intervals (ISIs) from neurons recorded in the GPi, dystonia patients showed higher mean firing rates. Additionally, the centre point (CP) of Pointcare map (PM) and the mean stepping in PM revealed higher irregularity in TS as compared to dystonia. We did not find any differences in burst parameters between groups.

Conclusions: Our data provide evidence that both neuronal activity and firing patterns of neurons in the GPi differ with regard to specific measures between patients with dystonia and patients with TS.