Modulation of DBS-induced cortical responses and movement by the directionality and magnitude of current administered

Subthalamic deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) is an effective therapy for alleviating motor symptoms in people with Parkinson’s disease (PwP), although some may not receive optimal clinical benefits. One potential mechanism of STN-DBS involves antidromic activation of the hyperdirect pathway (HDP), thus suppressing cortical beta synchrony to improve motor function, albeit the precise mechanisms underlying optimal DBS parameters are not well understood. To address this, 18 PwP with STN-DBS completed a 2 Hz monopolar stimulation of the left STN during MEG. MEG data were imaged in the time-frequency domain using minimum norm estimation. Peak vertex time series data were extracted to interrogate the directional specificity and magnitude of DBS current on evoked and induced cortical responses and accelerometer metrics of finger tapping using linear mixed-effects models and mediation analyses. We observed increases in evoked responses (HDP ~ 3–10 ms) and synchronization of beta oscillatory power (14–30 Hz, 10–100 ms) following DBS pulse onset in the primary sensorimotor cortex (SM1), supplementary motor area (SMA) and middle frontal gyrus (MFG) ipsilateral to the site of stimulation. DBS parameters significantly modulated neural and behavioral outcomes, with clinically effective contacts eliciting significant increases in medium-latency evoked responses, reductions in induced SM1 beta power, and better movement profiles compared to suboptimal contacts, often regardless of the magnitude of current applied. Finally, HDP-related improvements in motor function were mediated by the degree of SM1 beta suppression in a setting-dependent manner. Together, these data suggest that DBS-evoked brain-behavior dynamics are influenced by the level of beta power in key hubs of the basal ganglia-cortical loop, and this effect is exacerbated by the clinical efficacy of DBS parameters. Such data provides novel mechanistic and clinical insight, which may prove useful for characterizing DBS programming strategies to optimize motor symptom improvement in the future.