Guest Lecture by Erika Ross (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA)BrainLinks-BrainTools is inviting all members, colleagues and friends to a guest lecture given by Dr. Erika Ross from the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA:
Topic: Neurochemical and fMRI BOLD correlates of deep brain stimulation: dissecting circuit dynamics to inform future therapeutic design
Abstract: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a neurosurgical approach to treat the symptoms associated with several neurologic disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor, and dystonia. Although there is still limited understanding of the underlying mechanisms of action, DBS is becoming more broadly applied to treat neuropsychiatric disorders including Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and more recently Alzheimer’s disease (AD). One hypothesis regarding the mechanism of action of DBS is that it provides therapeutic benefit by activating or deactivating local and distal circuitry with resultant neurophysiological changes. Recent studies suggest that identifying potential biomarkers of effective DBS and using this information to create a “closed-loop” stimulation paradigm, in place of the currently applied static stimulation paradigms, may improve therapeutic outcome. In order to provide insight into the potential common biomarkers underlying brain stimulation, we set out to identify the global and local circuit mechanisms of DBS in several normal large animal models using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and fast scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV). This work provides fundamental insight into the circuit mechanisms of DBS, and may help guide future technology development to improve patient care.
CV: Erika is currently an Assistant Professor in Neurosurgery working in the Neural Engineering Laboratories at the Mayo Clinic. Prior to this, Erika completed her M.S. in Molecular Biology at the University of Denver and Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Mayo Clinic. Her current research focus is investigating the circuit dynamics of neural stimulation and potential feedback mechanisms to improve brain and peripheral nerve stimulation.
Specifically, her work involves using fast scan cyclic voltammetery (FSCV) and imaging techniques to understand the local and global changes that occur with brain stimulation, with the goal of improving therapeutic application.
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