Cognitive Improvements After Intermittent Deep Brain Stimulation of the Nucleus Basalis of Meynert in a Transgenic Rat Model for Alzheimer’s Disease: A Preliminary Approach
Affiliations: [a] Department of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, University Hospital Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| [b] European Graduate School of Neuroscience (EURON), AZ, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| [c] Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience (MHeNs), Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
| [d] Department of Psychiatry, Division of Molecular Psychiatry, Laboratory of Translational Neuroscience, Center of Mental Health, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Philippos Koulousakis, Department of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, University Hospital of Cologne, Kerpener Str. 62 D- 50937, Cologne, Germany. Tel.: +49 22147882772; E-mail: philippos.koulousakis@uk-koeln.de/p.koulousakis@unimaas.nl.
Abstract: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) has been shown to exert promising therapeutical effects in a pilot study with patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We aimed at comparing the cognitive effects of intermittent and continuous NBM stimulation paradigms in an animal model for AD. In this exploratory study, aged Tgf344-AD rats were behaviorally tested pre-, and post implantation, while being stimulated with unilateral- or bilateral-intermittent and bilateral-continuous patterns. Bilateral-intermittent NBM DBS lead to supernormal performance in a spatial memory task. These findings suggest that NBM DBS could be further refined, thereby improving patient care.
Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, deep brain stimulation, intermittent stimulation, nucleus basalis of Meynert
