Abstract
Non-Human Primate: An Essential Building Brick in the Discovery of the Subthalamic Deep Brain Stimulation Therapy.
Highlights
The recent announcement that a Lasker award has been attributed to Professor Alim-Louis Benabid for pioneering the application of high frequency stimulation, named deep brain stimulation, of the subthalamic nucleus in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease prompts us to evoke the decisive role played by the non-human primate model in the discovery of this neurosurgical therapy, regarded as the current therapeutic gold standard of the disease
In the late 1980s, considerable progress was made in the understanding of the role played by the basal ganglia in the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease (Albin et al, 1989) and the subthalamic nucleus was highlighted as an optimal therapeutic target
This small nucleus, the only excitatory glutamatergic structure of the basal ganglia network (Smith and Parent, 1988) playing a key role in movement control (DeLong, 1990), is considered as a driving force regulating the basal ganglia output nuclei; it was suggested that activation of the subthalamic nucleus should inhibit movement and its inhibition should be related to the release of movement
Summary
(2016) Non-Human Primate: An Essential Building Brick in the Discovery of the Subthalamic Deep Brain Stimulation Therapy. The recent announcement that a Lasker award has been attributed to Professor Alim-Louis Benabid for pioneering the application of high frequency stimulation, named deep brain stimulation, of the subthalamic nucleus in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease prompts us to evoke the decisive role played by the non-human primate model in the discovery of this neurosurgical therapy, regarded as the current therapeutic gold standard of the disease.
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