(June 3, 2015) Scientists at Duke Medicine have produced a
3-D map of the human brain stem at an unprecedented level of detail using MRI
technology.
In a study to be published June 3
in Human Brain Mapping, the researchers unveil an ultra high-resolution brain
stem model that could better guide brain surgeons treating conditions such as
tremors and Parkinson’s disease with deep brain stimulation (DBS).
The new 3-D model could eliminate
risky trial-and-error as surgeons implant electrodes — a change akin to trading
an outdated paper road atlas for a real-time GPS.
“On the conventional MRI that we
take before surgery, the thalamus looks like a gray mass where you can see only
the borders,” said neurosurgeon Nandan Lad, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Duke
NeuroOutcomes Center and an author of the paper. “Now we will have actual
detail. With this map, for the first time we’re able to see the thalamus and
that underlying circuitry that we are modulating.”
Many neurosurgeons currently rely
on lower resolution CT and MRI scans and geographic coordinates relative to the
planes of the brain to guide them when placing electrodes into the thalamus.
They are targeting a circuit called the dentatorubrothalamic tract or DRT
(depicted as an X-shaped pathway in the accompanying image), Lad said.