Affiliations: [a] South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
| [b]
Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, London, UK
| [c]
King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: Sotirios Posporelis, Department of Psychological Medicine, 1st Floor, Cheyne Wing, King’s College Hospital, Denmark Hill, SE5 9RS, London, UK. Tel.: +44 7564 049 490; E-mail [email protected].
Note: [1
] These authors contributed equally to this work.
Abstract: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective invasive treatment for a wide range of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Neurosurgically implanted electrodes deliver stimulation of pre-programmed amplitude, frequency, and pulse width within deep brain structures; those settings can be adjusted at a later stage according to individual needs for optimal response. This results in variable effects dependent on the targeted region. An established treatment for movement disorders, the effectiveness of DBS in dementia remains under investigation. Translational studies have uncovered a pro-cognitive effect mediated by changes on cellular as well as network level. Several groups have attempted to examine the benefits of DBS in Alzheimer’s disease; differences in inclusion criteria and methodology make generalization of results difficult. This review aims to summarize all completed and ongoing human studies of DBS in Alzheimer’s disease. The results are classified by targeted anatomical structure. Future directions, as well as economical and ethical arguments, are explored in the final section.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, deep brain stimulation, dementia, memory, neuromodulation, neuropsychiatry
