Unsupervised clustering reveals spatially varying single neuronal firing patterns in the subthalamic nucleus of patients with Parkinson's disease.

Introduction: Subthalamic nucleus (STN) is an effective target for deep brain stimulation (DBS) to reduce the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). It is important to identify firing patterns within the structure for a better understanding of the electro-pathophysiology of the disease. Using recently established metrics, our study aims to autonomously identify the discharge patterns of individual cells and examine their spatial distribution within the STN.

Methods: We recorded single unit activity (SUA) from 12 awake PD patients undergoing a standard clinical DBS surgery. Three extracted features from raw SUA (local variation, bursting index and prominence of peak) were used with k-means clustering to achieve the aforementioned unsupervised grouping of firing patterns.

Results: 279 neurons were isolated and four distinct firing patterns were identified across patients: tonic (11%), irregular (55%), periodic (9%) and non-periodic bursts (25%). The mean firing rates for irregular discharges were significantly lower ( < 0.05) than the rest. Tonic firings were significantly ventral (p < 0.05) while periodic (p < 0.05) and non-periodic ( < 0.01) bursts were dorsal. The percentage of periodically bursting neurons in dorsal region and entire STN were significantly correlated with off state UPDRS tremor scores ( = 0.51,  = 0.04) and improvement in bradykinesia and rigidity ( = 0.57,  = 0.02) respectively.

Conclusion: Strengthening the application of unsupervised clustering for firing patterns of individual cells, this study shows a unique spatial affinity of tonic activity towards the ventral and bursting activity towards the dorsal region of STN in PD patients. This spatial preference, together with the correlation of clinical scores, can provide a clue towards understanding Parkinsonian symptom generation.