Despite advances in symptomatic treatment options, the pathomechanism of idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) remains poorly understood. Animal studies from recent years suggest pathological information processing in the basal ganglia network to be responsible for major movement deficits observed in patients, which, according to the information lesion hypothesis, might also explain the mechanism of action of deep brain stimulation (DBS). Using novel measures from information theory we characterize the information content, storage and transfer of intraoperatively recorded local field potentials (LFP) from the subthalamic area of n = 19 PD patients undergoing surgery for implantation of electrodes for deep brain stimulation. In agreement with recent animal studies, we demonstrate a significant positive correlation of subthalamic information content and movement deficits (ρ > 0.48). Analysis of information storage reveals a larger processing memory in the zona incerta (ZI) than in the subthalamic nucleus (STN). We discuss possible implications for the efficiency of high frequency DBS. Further, we estimate the information transfer between forearm muscles and ZI/STN. Here, we show that the bidirectional information flow with respect to the STN is larger compared to the ZI. In contrast to the STN, however, the bidirectional information flow in the ZI is modulated, namely increased, by movement. The results of our study may help to understand the mechanism of action of deep brain stimulation and further explain recent studies claiming efficiency of ZI stimulation for certain motor symptoms.

中文翻译：

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帕金森病患者丘脑下区信息处理的特征

尽管对症治疗方案取得了进展，但对特发性帕金森病 (PD) 的发病机制仍知之甚少。近年来的动物研究表明，基底神经节网络中的病理信息处理是导致患者观察到的主要运动缺陷的原因，根据信息损伤假说，这也可能解释了深部脑刺激 (DBS) 的作用机制。使用来自信息论的新措施，我们表征了术中记录的局部场电位 (LFP) 的信息内容、存储和转移，这些局部场电位 (LFP) 来自 n = 19 位接受手术植入电极进行脑深部刺激的 PD 患者的下丘脑区域。与最近的动物研究一致，我们证明了丘脑底信息内容和运动缺陷的显着正相关（ρ > 0.48）。对信息存储的分析表明，与丘脑底核 (STN) 相比，不确定带 (ZI) 中的处理记忆更大。我们讨论了对高频 DBS 效率的可能影响。此外，我们估计了前臂肌肉和 ZI/STN 之间的信息传递。在这里，我们表明与 ZI 相比，关于 STN 的双向信息流更大。然而，与 STN 不同的是，ZI 中的双向信息流通过运动进行调制，即增加。我们的研究结果可能有助于理解深部脑刺激的作用机制，并进一步解释最近声称 ZI 刺激对某些运动症状有效的研究。