Deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease following fetal nigral transplantation.
OFF-period dyskinesias have been reported as a consequence of fetal nigral transplantation for Parkinson's disease. This type of dyskinesias may appear in patients even in the prolonged absence of antiparkinson medication and be aggravated by levodopa. Therefore, pharmacological therapeutic approaches in these patients are limited. Here we report two patients with bilateral fetal nigral grafts in the caudate and putamen subjected to deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the globus pallidus internus (GPi) or subthalamic nucleus (STN). Clinical assessment was performed according to UPDRS and the clinical dyskinesia rating scale. In both patients, we found significant improvement in OFF-period symptoms as well as levodopa-induced dyskinesias. However, only GPi-DBS led to a significant reduction of OFF-period dyskinesias whereas STN-DBS did not influence dyskinesias unrelated to external dopaminergic application. These findings, based on two case reports, highlight the pivotal role of the GPi in mediating dyskinesia-related neural activity within the basal ganglia loop.
Department of Neurology, Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany.
Jan
J
Herzog
Oliver
O
Pogarell
Marcus O
MO
Pinsker
Andreas
A
Kupsch
Wolfgang H
WH
Oertel
Olle
O
Lindvall
Günther
G
Deuschl
Jens
J
Volkmann
D000328:Adult; D046690:Deep Brain Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D016332:Fetal Tissue Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D013378:Substantia Nigra / Q000637:transplantation*; D016896:Treatment Outcome