Long-term recordings of local field potentials from implanted deep brain stimulation electrodes.

Background: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus is an effective treatment for Parkinson disease. However, DBS is not responsive to an individual's disease state, and programming parameters, once established, do not change to reflect disease state. Local field potentials (LFPs) recorded from DBS electrodes are being investigated as potential biomarkers for the Parkinson disease state.

Alzheimer's disease and memory-monitoring impairment: Alzheimer's patients show a monitoring deficit that is greater than their accuracy deficit.

We assessed the ability of two groups of patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) and two groups of older adults to monitor the likely accuracy of recognition judgments and source identification judgments about who spoke something earlier. Alzheimer's patients showed worse performance on both memory judgments and were less able to monitor with confidence ratings the likely accuracy of both kinds of memory judgments, as compared to a group of older adults who experienced the identical study and test conditions. Critically, however, when memory performance was made comparable between the AD patients and the older adults (e.

MRI-related heating near deep brain stimulation electrodes: more data are needed.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of patients with implanted deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices poses a challenge for healthcare providers. As a consequence of safety concerns about magnetic field interactions with the device, induced electrical currents and thermal damage due to radiofrequency heating, a number of stringent guidelines have been proposed by the device manufacturer. Very few detailed investigations of these safety issues have been published to date, and the stringent manufacturer guidelines have gone unchallenged, leading some hospitals and imaging centers around the world to ban or restrict the use of MRI in DBS patients.