A PC-based system for predicting movement from deep brain signals in Parkinson's disease

There is much current interest in deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) for the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD). This type of surgery has enabled unprecedented access to deep brain signals in the awake human. In this paper we present an easy-to-use computer based system for recording, displaying, archiving, and processing electrophysiological signals from the STN. The system was developed for predicting self-paced hand-movements in real-time via the online processing of the electrophysiological activity of the STN. It is hoped that such a computerised system might have clinical and experimental applications. For example, those sites within the STN most relevant to the processing of voluntary movement could be identified through the predictive value of their activities with respect to the timing of future movement.