Post-Mortem Analysis of Parkinson’s Disease Brains After 11 and 12 Years of Deep Brain Stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is widely used to treat Parkinson’s disease (PD). This procedure does not cure the disease but radically alleviates its motor symptoms and leads to a significant reduction of medication-associated adverse effects. Through this study, we aim to describe fine neuroanatomical and neurochemical alterations of chronically stimulated brain tissue and associate these changes to clinical outcomes of DBS. These case studies provide detailed analysis of two PD brains who underwent DBS for 11 and 12 years, two of the longest STN stimulation durations ever reported.