Robot assisted stereotaxic targeting for STN DBS in the rat brain

Introduction: Severe motoric symptoms in parkinson's disease arise from the loss of dopaminergic input into the striatum. The striatal efferent nuclei are thus affected by a lack of GABAergic input. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) seems to counterbalance this effect by a hitherto unknown molecular mechanism. Based on the hypothesis that high frequency electrical stimulation may have an effect on neutrotransmitter release in the local environment of the stimulation electrode we established an in vivo rat model allowing for simultaneous and collocated high frequency stimulation and mi…