What is deep brain stimulation?
Our brain is a wonderful organ. Designed by the chief architect, this is the most complex CPU ever built. Like our computer’s CPU, this CPU in our body can also be thought of a bundle of electrical wires criss-crossing in a highly complex fashion. Every once in a while, there can be something that happens to cause some malfunction in this circuit. DBS can be thought of as an operation to set right this malfunction by inserting a pacemaker into the brain.
Miss J, a 22 year old girl had been diagnosed with a brain tumour as a child and had undergone radiation for that. While the tumour was successfully treated, this radiation to the brain had a nasty side-effect. Some of the circuitry in her midbrain had been altered, leaving her with a permanent tremor in the right hand and leg.
She was suffering silently for more than 10 years, not knowing that this problem has a solution in the form of DBS! While the damage to the brain that is an inevitable consequence of radiation cant be undone, by placing a pacemaker into the brain, the imbalance in her movement circuitry could be modulated.
The result is almost instantaneous since the operation is done with the patient awake in the operating room. Once the electrode reaches the correct area in the brain and electrical current is sent through it, the tremor reduces immediately and her slow movements become rapid.
DBS is helpful in a wide variety of conditions apart from tremors. It is very useful to improve the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, Dystonia, drug resistant Epilepsy, Obsessive compulsive disorder, major depression and Chronic Pain syndromes.
The deep area in the brain which is stimulated varies according to the condition treated. However, in all conditions the patient is awake during surgery and is being tested with stimulation and a wide variety of observations are done as and when surgery is in progress. Therefore, the success of surgery involves the active co-operation of the patient.
Before surgery is considered, all patients undergo a detailed assessment to look for factors in favour and against surgery.
Each patient and family are thoroughly counselled about what to expect before, during and after surgery. After successful surgery, they need to be followed up for programming sessions where the stimulator is turned on and tuned in order to achieve the best clinical benefit with the least side-effects.