Stimulation-induced long-lasting desynchronization of plastic neuronal networks

Abnormal neuronal synchrony is a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Deep brain stimulation is an established treatment; however, symptoms return shortly after stimulation ceases. Utilizing synaptic plasticity, theory-based approaches, such as coordinated reset stimulation (CRS), induce long-lasting effects by reshaping synaptic connectivity to stabilize desynchronized activity after stimulation ceases. Animal and clinical studies demonstrated corresponding long-lasting therapeutic effects.

 

We study CRS in networks of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons with spike-timing-dependent plasticity using theoretical analysis and computer simulations. We find that CRS-induced synaptic reshaping is affected by the statistics of neuronal responses to individual stimuli and their spatio-temporal pattern [1,2]. Randomization of CRS patterns improves the parameter robustness of resulting long-lasting effects [1,3]. We hypothesize that randomized stimulus patterns may improve the parameter robustness of long-lasting therapeutic effects of brain stimulation in PD and facilitate parameter adjustment procedures in future clinical applications.