The subthalamic nucleus (STN) has only recently been added into the reward circuit. It has been shown to encode information regarding rewards (4% sucrose, 32% cocaine). To investigate the encoding of negative value, STN neurons were recorded in rats performing a task using discriminative stimuli predicting various rewards and especially during the replacement of a positive reinforcer (4% sucros...

Functional neurosurgery has afforded the opportunity to assess interactions between populations of neurons in the human cerebral cortex and basal ganglia in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Interactions occur over a wide range of frequencies, and the functional significance of those >30 Hz is particularly unclear. Do they improve movement, and, if so, in what way? We acquired simultaneou...

In surgery for subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS), precise implantation of the lead into the STN is essential. Physiological refinement with microelectrode recording (MER) is the gold standard for identifying STN. We studied single tract MER findings and surgical outcomes and verified our surgical method using single tract MER. The number of trajectories in MER and the final...

Our daily decisions involve an element of risk, a behavioral process that is potentially modifiable. Here we assess the role of the associative-limbic subthalamic nucleus (STN) in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) testing on and off deep-brain stimulation (DBS) on anticipatory risk taking to obtain rewards and avoid losses. We assessed 12 OCD STN DBS in a randomized double-blind within-subjec...

Adam Zaidel Midbrain dopaminergic neurons and their projections to the basal ganglia (BG) degenerate in Parkinson's disease (PD), leading to a cascade of physiological abnormalities in the BG. Primary studies on the primate and rodent models of PD have demonstrated changes in firing rates, increased synchrony and exaggerated oscillations in the Parkinsonian BG particularly in the subthalamic nu...

The present study examined pausing patterns in spontaneous speech as a measure of the effect of deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) on parkinsonian speech. Pauses reflect various aspects of speech and language processes, including motor initiation and linguistic planning. Relatively little attention has been given to pauses in determining the effect of STN-DBS. An exam...

Several prominent neurocomputational models predict that an increase of choice alternatives is modulated by increased activity in the subthalamic nucleus (STN). In turn, increased STN activity allows prolonged accumulation of information. At the same time, areas in the medial frontal cortex such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the pre-SMA are hypothesized to influence the information...

The subthalamic nucleus (STN) of the basal ganglia appears to have a potent role in action and cognition. Anatomical and imaging studies show that different frontal cortical areas directly project to the STN via so-called hyperdirect pathways. This review reports some of the latest findings about such circuits, including simultaneous recordings from cortex and the STN in humans, single-unit rec...

Beta-band synchronous oscillations in the dorsolateral region of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) of human patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have been frequently reported. However, the correlation between STN oscillations and synchronization has not been thoroughly explored. The simultaneous recordings of 2390 multi-unit pairs recorded by two parallel microelectrodes (separated by fixed dista...

36 In humans, the control of voluntary movement, in which the cortico-basal-ganglia circuitry 37 participates, is mainly lateralised. However, several studies suggest that both the contralateral 38 and ipsilateral basal ganglia (BG) systems are implicated during unilateral movement. 39 Bilateral improvement of motor signs in Parkinson’s disease patients (PD) has been reported 40 with unilateral...