Spectral characteristics of subthalamic nucleus local field potentials in Parkinson's disease: Phenotype and movement matter

• Published in: The European journal of neuroscience Vol. 53; no. 8; pp. 2804 - 2818
• Main Authors: Godinho, Fabio, Fim Neto, Arnaldo, Bianqueti, Bruno Leonardo, Luccas, Julia Baldi, Varjão, Eduardo, Terzian Filho, Paulo Roberto, Figueiredo, Eberval Gadelha, Almeida, Tiago Paggi, Yoneyama, Takashi, Takahata, André Kazuo, Rocha, Maria Sheila, Soriano, Diogo Coutinho, Smith, Yoland
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: France Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-04-2021
• Subjects: biomarkers; brain waves; Deep brain stimulation; Electrical stimuli; Gait; Learning algorithms; Movement disorders; Neurodegenerative diseases; neurology; neurosurgery; Parkinson's disease; Phenotypes; physiology; Solitary tract nucleus; Subthalamic nucleus; Synchronization; Tremor; physiology; neurosurgery; brain waves; biomarkers; neurology
• DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15103
• EISSN: 1460-9568
• ISSN: 0953-816X

Parkinson's disease (PD) is clinically heterogeneous across patients and may be classified in three motor phenotypes: tremor dominant (TD), postural instability and gait disorder (PIGD), and undetermined. Despite the significant clinical characterization of motor phenotypes, little is known about how electrophysiological data, particularly subthalamic nucleus local field potentials (STN‐LFP), differ between TD and PIGD patients. This is relevant since increased STN‐LFP bandpower at α–β range (8–35 Hz) is considered a potential PD biomarker and, therefore, a critical setpoint to drive adaptive deep brain stimulation. Acknowledging STN‐LFP differences between phenotypes, mainly in rest and movement states, would better fit DBS to clinical and motor demands. We studied this issue through spectral analyses on 35 STN‐LFP in TD and PIGD patients during rest and movement. We demonstrated that higher β2 activity (22–35 Hz) was observed in PIGD only during rest. Additionally, bandpower differences between rest and movement occurred at the α–β range, but with different patterns as per phenotypes: movement‐induced desynchronization concerned lower frequencies in TD (10–20 Hz) and higher frequencies in PIGD patients (21–28 Hz). Finally, when supervised learning algorithms were employed aiming to discriminate PD phenotypes based on STN‐LFP bandpower features, movement information had improved the classification accuracy, achieving peak performances when TD and PIGD movement‐induced desynchronization ranges were considered. These results suggest that STN‐LFP β‐band encodes phenotype‐movement dependent information in PD patients.
Spectral characterization of local field potentials (LFPs) from the Subthalamic Nucleus (STN) during the intra‐operative procedure was performed in rest and movement conditions for tremor dominant (TD) and postural instability and gait disorder (PIGD) Parkinson's disease patients. A higher β2 activity (22–35 Hz) was observed for PIGD patients in rest, while a phenotype‐dependent movement‐induced desynchronization was observed in lower frequencies (10‐20 Hz) for TD, and in higher frequencies (21–28 Hz) for PIGD. Besides, multifactorial statistical analysis, machine learning‐based algorithms using bandpower features in the mentioned frequency ranges achieved better phenotype discriminatory performance, suggesting that STN‐LFP encodes phenotype‐movement dependent information in Parkinson’s disease.