How focal is DBS in rodents?
Callesen H, Habelt B, Wieske F, Jackson M, Khadka N, Mattei D, Bernhardt N, Heinz A, Liebetanz D, Bikson M, Padberg F, Hadar R, Nitsche MA, Winter C
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Abstract
Involuntary movements as seen in repetitive disorders such as Tourette Syndrome (TS) results from cortical hyperexcitability that arise due to striato-thalamo-cortical circuit (STC) imbalance. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a stimulation procedure that changes cortical excitability, yet its relevance in repetitive disorders such as TS remains largely unexplored. Here, we employed the dopamine transporter-overexpressing (DAT-tg) rat model to investigate behavioral and neurobiological effects of frontal tDCS. The outcome of tDCS was pathology dependent, as anodal tDCS decreased repetitive behavior in the DAT-tg rats yet increased it in wild-type (wt) rats. Extensive deep brain stimulation (DBS) application and computational modeling assigned the response in DAT-tg rats to the sensorimotor pathway. Neurobiological assessment revealed cortical activity changes and increase in striatal inhibitory properties in the DAT-tg rats. Our findings show that tDCS reduces repetitive behavior in the DAT-tg rat through modulation of the sensorimotor STC circuit. This sets the stage for further investigating the usage of tDCS in repetitive disorders such as TS.
