The different performance among motor tasks during the increasing current intensity of deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus in rats with different degrees of the unilateral striatal lesion.

Of all the parameters in the deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in the Parkinson disease (PD) animal models, the selection of the stimulation current intensity is alterable and argumentative to affect the stimulation charge or charge density. In order to observe the different performances among several motor tasks during the STN-DBS in rats, we observed the behavioral performance during the stimulation with 0, 100, 150 and 200microA currents. We found that the DBS efficacy reached the climax during the 200microA stimulation at the methamphetamine-induced rotational behavioral test, however at the stepping test and rotarod test, the critical current were 150microA to reach the best improvements. Such findings suggest that the stimulation parameters to reach the climax efficacy among the different symptoms are different during the STN-DBS experiments in rats. The appropriate stimulation parameters should be selected by the symptoms separately according to the aim of each study. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.