Career Development:Mechanisms of Deep Brain Stimulation

描述(由申请者提供)：这个项目将使多瓦尔博士成为未来运动障碍和脑深部刺激(DBS)的研究人员。这一奖项将为多瓦尔博士提供受保护的时间，让他参加神经工程课程，参与临床轮换，并学习确立自己为独立研究人员所需的实验技术。作为这项提议的一部分，多瓦尔博士组建了一个由研究人员和临床医生组成的职业发展委员会，以指导他的进步。该奖项将资助多瓦尔博士进行动物、临床和计算研究，这些研究将量化DBS的信号处理效果，并为他提供时间发表他的结果，并准备未来用于建立自己实验室的拨款。多瓦尔博士将量化受帕金森氏病(PD)或特发性震颤(ET)等运动障碍影响的大脑区域的信息处理。DBS可以缓解一些人的症状，但对另一些人可能无效或引起衰弱的副作用。了解DBS如何改变大脑运动区的信号处理将加速设计能够更好地缓解症状的DBS模式。这项工作将利用信息论的工具来分析疾病发病前后受影响区域之间的关系，以及存在临床使用和最近假想的DBS模式。在这个项目中，Dorval博士将记录大鼠PD模型运动区的多电极阵列(MEA)；收集PD和ET患者的临床数据；并制作结合和解释生物学结果的计算机模型。Nicolelis博士以其在老鼠身上的MEA工作而闻名世界。特纳医生是星展银行手术和技术领域的知名领导者。最重要的是，资助导师格里尔博士是DBS效应计算机模型的先驱，也是一位经验丰富的实验者，有成功的临床合作历史。多瓦尔博士在杜克大学工作，与这些顾问和其他拨款捐赠者一起工作，他处于独特的地位，既可以发展自己作为星展银行研究人员的技能，又可以在了解星展银行缓解运动障碍症状的机制方面取得重大进展。这个项目将揭示帕金森氏症等运动障碍和脑深部刺激(DBS)治疗是如何改变大脑信息处理的。如果成功，该项目将改善对现有患者的治疗，并增加DBS有效的个人数量。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will develop Dr. Dorval as a future researcher in motor-disorders and deep brain stimulation (DBS). This Award will provide Dr. Dorval with protected time to take neural engineering courses, participate in clinical rotations and learn the experimental techniques required to establish himself as an independent researcher. As part of this proposal, Dr. Dorval has assembled a career development committee made of researchers and clinicians to guide his progress. The Award will fund Dr. Dorval to perform animal, clinical and computational research that will quantify the signal processing effects of DBS, and provide time for him to publish his results and prepare future grants with which to establish his own laboratory. Dr. Dorval will quantify the information processing in brain regions affected by motor-disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD) or essential tremor (ET). DBS alleviates symptoms in some individuals, but can be ineffective or induce debilitating side effects in others. Knowledge of how DBS modifies signal processing in motor regions of the brain will hasten the design of DBS patterns better able to relieve symptoms. This work will utilize the tools of information theory to analyze the relationships between affected regions before and after disease onset, and in presence of clinically-used and recently-hypothesized patterns of DBS. In this project, Dr. Dorval will record from multi-electrode arrays (MEAs) in motor-regions of a PD-model in the rat; gather clinical data from PD and ET patients; and craft computer models that combine and explain the biological results. Dr. Nicolelis is world-known for his MEA work in rats. Dr. Turner is an established leader in DBS surgery and techniques. Most significantly, the grant mentor Dr. Grill is a pioneer in computer models of DBS effects and an experienced experimentalist with a history of successful clinical collaborations. Working at Duke University, with these advisers and the other grant contributors, Dr. Dorval is uniquely positioned to both develop his skills as a DBS researcher and make significant progress in understanding the mechanisms of motor-disorder symptom alleviation by DBS. This project will reveal how brain information processing is modified by motor-disorders such as Parkinson's disease and by the treatment of deep brain stimulation (DBS). If successful, this project will improve treatment for existing patients and increase the number of individuals for whom DBS is effective.