Biology subjects

Brinkmann, B. H.

Publications and source records attributed to Brinkmann, B. H..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2022

Chronic modulation of human memory and thalamic-hippocampal theta activities.

Electrical stimulation is a powerful therapeutic tool for treating neurologic and neuropsychiatric disorders. Sensing and modulating electrophysiological biomarkers of memory over extended timescales is necessary for tracking and improving memory in humans. Here, we describe results from humans in their natural home environments using a novel, investigational system enabling chronic stimulation and multi-channel recording of anterior thalamic and hippocampal local field potentials during memory tasks. Four people with focal epilepsy performed a free recall verbal memory task repeatedly for up to fifty months on a touch-screen device with wireless signal acquisition with electrophysiology and behavioral data streaming to a cloud environment. Anterior thalamic-hippocampal spectral activities in the theta frequency range were found to correlate with memory processing, to predict task performance, and to be modulated by deep brain stimulation. Our results provide a new biomarker-based technology for chronic remote tracking of memory performance and modulation of the associated neural activities. One Sentence SummaryElectrical stimulation in the anterior thalamic nuclei modulates theta frequency activities and improves human verbal memory performance chronically.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2022

Electrical stimulation of temporal and limbic circuitry produces distinct responses in human ventral temporal cortex

The human ventral temporal cortex (VTC) is highly connected to integrate visual perceptual inputs with feedback from cognitive and emotional networks. In this study, we used electrical brain stimulation to understand how different inputs from multiple brain regions drive unique electrophysiological responses in the VTC. We recorded intracranial EEG data in 6 patients implanted with intracranial electrodes for epilepsy surgery evaluation. Pairs of electrodes were stimulated with single pulse electrical stimulation, and corticocortical evoked potential (CCEP) responses were measured at electrodes in the collateral sulcus and lateral occipitotemporal sulcus of the VTC. Using a novel unsupervised machine learning method, we uncovered 2 to 4 distinct response shapes, termed basis profile curves (BPCs), at each recording electrode in the 11 to 500 ms post-stimulation interval. CCEPs of unique shape and high amplitude were elicited following stimulation of several regions and classified into a set of four consensus BPCs across subjects. One of the consensus BPCs was primarily elicited by stimulation of the hippocampus; another by stimulation of the amygdala; a third by stimulation of lateral cortical sites, such as the middle temporal gyrus; and the final one by stimulation of multiple distributed sites. Stimulation also produced sustained high frequency power decreases and low frequency power increases that spanned multiple BPC categories. Characterizing distinct shapes in stimulation responses provides a novel description of connectivity to the VTC and reveals significant differences in input from cortical and limbic structures. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTDisentangling the numerous input influences on highly connected areas in the brain is a critical step toward understanding how different brain networks work together to produce function. Single pulse electrical stimulation is an effective tool to accomplish this goal because the shapes and amplitudes of signals recorded from electrodes are informative of the synaptic physiology of the stimulation-driven inputs. We focused on targets in the ventral temporal cortex because it is an area strongly implicated in visual object perception. By using a data-driven clustering algorithm, we identified anatomical regions with distinct input connectivity profiles to the ventral temporal cortex. Examining high frequency power changes revealed possible modulation of excitability at the recording site induced by electrical stimulation of connected regions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Distributed Brain Co-Processor for Neurophysiologic Tracking and Adaptive Stimulation: Application to Drug Resistant Epilepsy

Early implantable epilepsy therapy devices provided open-loop electrical stimulation without brain sensing, computing, or an interface for synchronized behavioral inputs from patients. Recent epilepsy stimulation devices provide brain sensing but have not yet developed analytics for accurately tracking and quantifying behavior and seizures. Here we describe a distributed brain co-processor providing an intuitive bi-directional interface between patient, implanted neural stimulation and sensing device, and local and distributed computing resources. Automated analysis of continuous streaming electrophysiology is synchronized with patient reports using a hand-held device and integrated with distributed cloud computing resources for quantifying seizures, interictal epileptiform spikes, and patient symptoms during therapeutic electrical brain stimulation. The classification algorithms for interictal epileptiform spikes and seizures were developed and parameterized using long-term ambulatory data from 9 humans and 8 canines with epilepsy, and then implemented prospectively in out-of-sample testing in 2 pet canines and 4 humans with drug resistant epilepsy living in their natural environments.

bioengineering↗