Electrophysiological atlas and applications of same

Abstract

A method of creating an atlas that contains electrophysiological information related to at least one of a plurality of living subjects. In one embodiment, the method includes the steps of choosing a brain image volume as a common image volume of reference, acquiring electrophysiological information for a target of interest, relating the acquired electrophysiological information to spatial coordinates in the brain image volume of the target of interest, and registering the brain image volume of the target of interest to the common image volume of reference so as to create an atlas in which any spatial coordinates of the brain of the target of interest are related to atlas coordinates in the atlas such that the acquired electrophysiological information associated with the related spatial coordinates in the brain image volume of the target of interest can be related to atlas coordinates in the atlas, and vice versa.

Description

Some references, which may include patents, patent applications and various publications, are cited and discussed in the description of this invention. The citation and / or discussion of such references is provided merely to clarify the description of the present invention and is not an admission that any such reference is “prior art” to the invention described herein. All references cited and discussed in this specification are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties and to the same extent as if each reference was individually incorporated by reference. In terms of notation, hereinafter, “[n]” represents the nth reference cited in the reference list. For example, [9] represents the 9th reference cited in the reference list, namely, G. Rhode, A. Aldroubi and B. M. Dawant, “The Adaptive-bases algorithm for intensity-based nonrigid image registration,”IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, vol. 22, no. 11, pp 1470-1479, 2003. FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention ge...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention relates to a method for optimal placement of a deep brain stimulator (DBS) in a brain of a target of interest. The method involves creating an atlas that contains electrophysiological information related to a plurality of living subjects, identifying a target region of interest based on anatomical landmarks, and using microelectrode recordings and macrostimulation to refine the position. The atlas can be accessed over a network and used to find the optimal position for placing the DBS. The invention also includes a method for creating an atlas and storing it in a digitized format for easy access. The technical effects of the invention include improved accuracy and efficiency in identifying the optimal position for placement of a deep brain stimulator.

Problems solved by technology

Yet finding the optimal physiological target in deep brain stimulation implants for the treatment of movement disorders is a particularly complicated task.

For instance, it is practically impossible to test walking and postural stability in Parkinson's Disease (hereinafter “PD”) patients during the DBS lead implantation.

Two other major PD symptoms, Rigidity and Akinesia, are also considered difficult to evaluate quantitatively during DBS lead implantation.

If the contacts are located as little as 2 mm away from the desired target, ineffective stimulation results, which may be due to several reasons: (i) failure to capture control of the group of neurons, (ii) stimulation of non-desirable areas resulting in unpleasant stimulation, or (iii) necessity for higher stimulus intensities to produce the desired effect resulting in reduced battery life of the implantation, or an any combination of these or other reasons.

Registration (i.e. spatial alignment) of these atlases to the image volumes also raises a number of issues.

Unfortunately, this technique results in substantial misregistration errors.

But, this procedure only guarantees that the landmarks are registered to each other.

In a later publication [15], the authors acknowledge that this limitation plus the fact that the creation of the 3D structures involves interpolating two-dimensional (hereinafter “2D”) atlas slices that can be between 0.5 mm and 3 mm apart limit the accuracy and therefore the clinical usefulness of this approach.

This combined expertise is available only at a limited number of sites, which limits access to the procedure to about 3000 patients per year despite the estimated 180,000 patients per year who would benefit from it in the United States alone.

Therefore, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the art to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.

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