Precision imaging of individual human brains during deep brain stimulation (open-DBS)

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD) but its neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. A mechanistic understanding requires precise characterization of functional responses to various stimulation conditions within the same individual. Here, we leveraged recent advancements in 3T MRI-compatible DBS and precision imaging to collect extensive data from 14 PD patients who received DBS. Across five timepoints spanning one year, each patient underwent 11.7-hour fMRI under seven stimulation conditions (30-172 minutes/session), 2.2-hour structural MRI (26 min/session), 1.3-hour diffusion-weighted MRI (16 min/session), and neurological assessments. This densely-sampled dataset provides reliable, individual-specific functional measures.Dataset description:Fourteen patients with PD underwent assessment one month before and 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after STN-DBS surgery. In the presurgical visit, five modalities of sMRI (T1w imaging, T2w FLAIR, T2w imaging with both coronal and transversal views, QSM, and blood vessel enhanced MRA), dMRI (diffusion-weighted NODDI), 30 min (6 min × 5 runs) of resting-state fMRI, and UPDRS-III assessments from two independent neurologists were completed. Following surgery, patients underwent sMRI and dMRI scans using identical protocols as presurgery. Twenty-four min (6 min × 4 runs) of fMRI scanning were acquired under each of the 7 stimulation conditions (DBS OFF as well as continuous/block-design HFS, LFS, and VFS). Postsurgical UPDRS-III assessments were conducted for each of the 4 stimulation conditions (DBS OFF, continuous HFS, LFS, and VFS), by two neurologists, independently.