Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Deep brain stimulation restores frontostriatal network activity in obsessive-compulsive disorder

An Addendum to this article was published on 26 August 2014

This article has been updated

Abstract

Little is known about the underlying neural mechanism of deep brain stimulation (DBS). We found that DBS targeted at the nucleus accumbens (NAc) normalized NAc activity, reduced excessive connectivity between the NAc and prefrontal cortex, and decreased frontal low-frequency oscillations during symptom provocation in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Our findings suggest that DBS is able to reduce maladaptive activity and connectivity of the stimulated region.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: DBS normalizes brain activity in the NAc.
Figure 2: DBS normalizes excessive frontostriatal connectivity.
Figure 3: DBS modulates frontal low-frequency EEG oscillations in response to disease-related symptom-provoking stimuli.

Similar content being viewed by others

Change history

  • 18 July 2014

     Reanalysis accounting for electrode artifacts. The newly published Supplementary Figure 6 depicts normalized EPI scans from two DBS-implanted subjects illustrating that the nucleus accumbens ROI (red) and the region of signal dropout around the electrode are not overlapping. Nevertheless, we reanalyzed our data to further rule out the possibility that our results were affected by signal measured from the dropout region. We re-analyzed the data by removing the parts of the ROI that would extend into the electrode dropout region based on the normalized but unsmoothed functional images instead of T1-weighted scans. We then extracted the ROI time series from these unsmoothed images and correlated these with the smoothed remaining brain. Results from this reanalysis (Supplementary Table 6 and Supplementary Fig. 7) are similar to those of the first analysis—that is, DBS-induced decrease in functional connectivity between the NAc and mPFC/lPFC—confirming that our results are unlikely to reflect false positives related to electrode artifacts.

References

  1. Kringelbach, M.L., Green, A.L. & Aziz, T.Z. Front. Integr. Neurosci. 5, 8 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Denys, D. et al. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 67, 1061–1068 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Figee, M. et al. Biol. Psychiatry 69, 867–874 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Harrison, B.J. et al. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 66, 1189–1200 (2009).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Menzies, L. et al. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 32, 525–549 (2008).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Pogarell, O. et al. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 62, 87–92 (2006).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Knyazev, G.G. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 36, 677–695 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Van Laere, K. et al. J. Nucl. Med. 47, 740–747 (2006).

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Bewernick, B.H. et al. Biol. Psychiatry 67, 110–116 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. McIntyre, C.C. & Hahn, P.J. Neurobiol. Dis. 38, 329–337 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Lehman, J.F., Greenberg, B.D., McIntyre, C.C., Rasmussen, S.A. & Haber, S.N. J. Neurosci. 31, 10392–10402 (2011).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  12. Haber, S.N., Kim, K.S., Mailly, P. & Calzavara, R. J. Neurosci. 26, 8368–8376 (2006).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  13. Goodman, W.K. et al. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 46, 1006–1011 (1989).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Hamilton J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry 23, 56–62 (1960).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. Sheehan, D.V. et al. J. Clin. Psychiatry 59, 22–33 (1998).

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. et al. Neuroimage 15, 273–289 (2002).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Di Martino, A. et al. Cereb. Cortex 18, 2735–2747 (2008).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Lang, P.J., Bradley, M.M. & Cuthbert, B.N. International affective picture system IAPS): affective ratings of pictures and instruction manual. Technical Report A-8. (University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, 2008).

  19. Delorme, A. et al. Comput. Intell. Neurosci. doi:10.1155/2011/130714 (5 May 2011).

  20. Oostenveld, R., Fries, P., Maris, E. & Schoffelen, J.M. Comput. Intell. Neurosci. doi:10.1155/2011/156869 (23 December 2010).

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grant 916.66.095 from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research ZON-MW VENI program. A.M. was supported from a VENI grant 016.115.196 from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

D.D. and M.F. conceived the study. M.F., R.S., C.-E.V.-A., A.N. and M.V. designed experiments. M.F., J.L. and B.d.K. conducted functional neuroimaging. M.F., J.L., M.V. and L.D. carried out neuroimaging data processing and analysis. R.S., N.L. and C.-E.V.-A. conducted EEG recording, data processing and analysis. N.V., P.d.K., M.M. and P.O. acquired behavioral data. P.v.d.M. and P.R.S. performed neurosurgery and edited the manuscript. M.F., J.L. and R.S. prepared the manuscript. D.D., W.v.d.B., G.v.W., A.N., P.v.d.M., P.R.S. and A.M. edited the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Martijn Figee or Damiaan Denys.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

P.R.S. is an independent consultant for Medtronic Inc on educational matters and received travel grants from the company.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figures 1–7 and Supplementary Tables 1–6 (PDF 3103 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Figee, M., Luigjes, J., Smolders, R. et al. Deep brain stimulation restores frontostriatal network activity in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Nat Neurosci 16, 386–387 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3344

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3344

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing