High-resolution virtual brain modeling personalizes deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: Spatiotemporal response characteristics following stimulation of neural fiber pathways
Sora An,
Jan Fousek,
Zelma H.T. Kiss,
Filomeno Cortese,
Gwen van der Wijk,
Laina Beth McAusland,
Rajamannar Ramasubbu,
Viktor K. Jirsa,
Andrea B. Protzner
Affiliations
Sora An
Department of Communication Disorders, Ewha Womans University, 03760, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Corresponding authors.
Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Mathison Centre for Mental Health, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Psychiatry, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Filomeno Cortese
Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Seaman Family MR Centre, Foothills Medical Centre, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Gwen van der Wijk
Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Laina Beth McAusland
Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Psychiatry, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Rajamannar Ramasubbu
Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Mathison Centre for Mental Health, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Psychiatry, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Mathison Centre for Mental Health, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, T2N 1N4, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Corresponding authors.
Over the past 15 years, deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been actively investigated as a groundbreaking therapy for patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD); nevertheless, outcomes have varied from patient to patient, with an average response rate of ∼50%. The engagement of specific fiber tracts at the stimulation site has been hypothesized to be an important factor in determining outcomes, however, the resulting individual network effects at the whole-brain scale remain largely unknown. Here we provide a computational framework that can explore each individual's brain response characteristics elicited by selective stimulation of fiber tracts. We use a novel personalized in-silico approach, the Virtual Big Brain, which makes use of high-resolution virtual brain models at a mm-scale and explicitly reconstructs more than 100,000 fiber tracts for each individual. Each fiber tract is active and can be selectively stimulated. Simulation results demonstrate distinct stimulus-induced event-related potentials as a function of stimulation location, parametrized by the contact positions of the electrodes implanted in each patient, even though validation against empirical patient data reveals some limitations (i.e., the need for individual parameter adjustment, and differential accuracy across stimulation locations). This study provides evidence for the capacity of personalized high-resolution virtual brain models to investigate individual network effects in DBS for patients with TRD and opens up novel avenues in the personalized optimization of brain stimulation.
