What is deep brain stimulation?

Deep brain stimulation is a treatment to improve symptoms in people with Parkinson's. It involves surgically implanting an electrode and pacemaker-like device into the body. Biomedical engineer Sri Sarma, PhD, explains how DBS works in this video.

Transcript

00:00

Inside the neural stimulator is a voltage-controlled current source which sends current up through the wire, into the electrode, and at the tip of the electrode is

00:08

basically dumping charge. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:19

It basically has three components. You have your electrode, which is a small lead, which is implanted into--

00:26

drilled into the brain. So it's a chronic implant. The end of it, one end, is basically

00:33

targeted at the brain. The tip of the electrode is in some brain region. At the other end is connected to a wire or an extension.

00:40

That wire is then connected to the third component, which is your neurostimulator. It's like your battery pack, which sits under the clavicle.

00:48

Now, the way the system works is inside the neurostimulator is a voltage-controlled current source which sends current up through the wire,

00:56

into the electrode, and at the tip of the electrode is basically dumping charge into the region of the brain.

01:03

Now, neurons are electrically and chemically excitable cells. So when you change their electrical activity,

01:10

the potential around them, they're going to change their behavior. They're going to either turn on, or they're going to turn off. And so by putting a DBS system into a human being,

01:19

you're actually altering the electrical activity of the neurons in the tissue that's activated by the DBS signal.