Longterm deep brain stimulation withdrawal: Clinical stability despite electrophysiological instability

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a powerful treatment option for movement disorders, including severe generalised dystonia. After several years of treatment, cases have been reported in which DBS has been stopped without any deterioration in clinical benefit. This might indicate that DBS can restore function in some cases. The mechanism of DBS induced clinical retention effects has been addressed before. Here, the question we asked was if such clinical stability is reflected at the underlying physiology level or whether there is indication to believe that a stand-still of symptoms might be at risk because of neurophysiological instability. We recorded patients with pre-intervention life-threatening or severe genetic dystonia with long lasting clinical benefit when turned off DBS. Despite clinical stability, our physiological studies revealed large changes in the excitability of excitatory and inhibitory motor circuits in the cortex, which exceed normal fluctuation. This discrepancy between instability in the motor network physiology caused by removal of DBS and clinical stability alerts as it potentially indicates a risk to fail and cause symptoms to return.