Orientation selective deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus in rats.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has become an important tool in the management of a wide spectrum of diseases in neurology and psychiatry. Target selection is a vital aspect of DBS so that only the desired areas are stimulated. Segmented leads and current steering have been shown to be promising additions to DBS technology enabling better control of the stimulating electric field.

Multi-band SWIFT enables quiet and artefact-free EEG-fMRI and awake fMRI studies in rat.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in animal models provide invaluable information regarding normal and abnormal brain function, especially when combined with complementary stimulation and recording techniques. The echo planar imaging (EPI) pulse sequence is the most common choice for fMRI investigations, but it has several shortcomings. EPI is one of the loudest sequences and very prone to movement and susceptibility-induced artefacts, making it suboptimal for awake imaging.

Sleep-State Dependent Alterations in Brain Functional Connectivity under Urethane Anesthesia in a Rat Model of Early-Stage Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by the gradual degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, leading to striatal dopamine depletion. A partial unilateral striatal 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) lesion causes 40-60% dopamine depletion in the lesioned rat striatum, modeling the early stage of PD. In this study, we explored the connectivity between the brain regions in partially 6-OHDA lesioned male Wistar rats under urethane anesthesia using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 5 weeks after the 6-OHDA infusion.

Global Functional Connectivity Differences between Sleep-Like States in Urethane Anesthetized Rats Measured by fMRI.

Sleep is essential for nervous system functioning and sleep disorders are associated with several neurodegenerative diseases. However, the macroscale connectivity changes in brain networking during different sleep states are poorly understood. One of the hindering factors is the difficulty to combine functional connectivity investigation methods with spontaneously sleeping animals, which prevents the use of numerous preclinical animal models.