title: High-frequency stimulation of the anterior subthalamic nucleus reduces stereotyped behaviors in primates.
abstract: Growing evidence shows that dysfunction of the limbic basal ganglia (BG) network is implicated in repetitive behaviors, such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette's syndrome (TS), in humans. Because deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the posterior subthalamic nucleus (STN), which modulates the sensorimotor BG network, is beneficial in movement disorders, stimulation of the anterior, limbic STN might improve intractable behavioral disorders. We therefore evaluated the effect of anterior STN stimulation on the repetitive behaviors induced in two monkeys after bicuculline-induced dysfunction of the limbic external globus pallidus. DBS in the anterior STN dramatically reduced the stereotypies, but had no effect on the performance of a simple food retrieval task. Stimulations outside the STN were less effective in reducing the stereotypies. Electrode trajectories, reconstructed postmortem, confirmed that the effective contacts were in the anterior STN. DBS in the limbic STN might therefore provide relief from the severe stereotyped behaviors observed in OCD and TS.
authors.affiliation: Département de Psychiatrie, Centre Hospitalier Saint Anne, Paris F-75014, France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Baup
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Grabli
authors.forename: Carine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Karachi
authors.forename: Stéphanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mounayar
authors.forename: Chantal
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: François
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yelnik
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Féger
authors.forename: Léon
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tremblay