I would like to highlight the work of a new member, @MichelleSchmidt, a medical student from Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences, I met at WPC.
Michelle presented a systematic review on subterritory-specific GPi DBS targeting and cognitive/neuropsychiatric outcomes in Parkinson’s disease.
Her work raises a simple but important question: does where we stimulate within the GPi influence non-motor outcomes after DBS?
This may be especially relevant for GBA1-associated Parkinson’s disease, where DBS outcomes remain conflicting across studies. Perhaps part of this variability could be re-examined by looking not only at genotype and clinical phenotype, but also at electrode location and GPi subtargeting.
It would be interesting to re-analyze published DBS cohorts with available imaging and electrode-localization data, and to explore larger datasets or registries when possible, to see whether this could help clarify outcomes in genetically defined PD populations.
I offered to mentor Michelle as she develops this idea further, but I would love to hear from the DBS, movement disorders, and neurogenetics community (for example @gdp22 @danieltds …):
Is GPi subtargeting an overlooked variable in DBS outcomes for GBA1-associated PD?
Here is the abstract that she presented!
