Neural Hijacking

Abstract

Electrical stimulation of the brain was one of the first experimental methods applied to understanding brain organization and function and it continues as a highly useful method both in research and clinical applications. Intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) involves applying electrical stimuli through a microelectrode suitable for recording the action potentials of single neurons. ICMS can be categorized into single pulse stimulation, high frequency, short duration stimulation and high frequency, long duration stimulation. For clinical and experimental reasons, considerable interest focuses on the mechanism of neural activation by electrical stimuli. In this paper, we discuss recent results suggesting that action potentials evoked in cortical neurons by high frequency electrical stimulation do not sum with the natural, behaviorally related background activity; rather, high frequency stimulation eliminates and replaces natural activity. We refer to this as neural hijacking. We propose that a major component of the mechanism underlying neural hijacking is excitation of axons by ICMS and elimination of natural spikes by antidromic collision with stimulus driven spikes evoked at high frequency. Evidence also supports neural hijacking as an important mechanism underlying the action of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the subthalamic nucleus and its therapeutic effect in treating Parkinson’s disease.

Spatio-temporal characteristics of population responses evoked by microstimulation in the barrel cortex

“…For example, studies of peripheral nerves stimulation defined HFS to be within the range of 1–40 kHz 38 while studies using deep brain stimulation (DBS) defined HFS as 50 Hz 36 . In this work we used 500 Hz as HFS, that is well within the range of previous ICMS HFS studies 28 , 52 , 53 . As the frequency range for LFS is not well defined for ICMS, we chose 100 Hz as the lower frequency.…”

“…(ii) 20 ms of high-frequency stimulation (HFS short; 500 Hz; 10 pulses), in this condition, the amount of energy equals to that of LFS, but stimulation length is much shorter. ICMS frequency definition for HFS and LFS has a wide range and depends on stimulated tissue and the electrical stimulation technique; In this work we used 500 Hz as HFS, that is well within the range of previous ICMS HFS studies 28 , 52 , 53 . Because the frequency range for LFS is not well defined for ICMS, we chose 100 Hz as the lower frequency.…”

“…Because the frequency range for LFS is not well defined for ICMS, we chose 100 Hz as the lower frequency. The frequency range of 100–200 Hz was widely used in many previous studies and was reported to be highly effective, in evoking neural activity and affecting behavioral performance 28 , 52 , 54 . We used additional control stimulation condition: 5 pulses of lower frequency (50 Hz) that has half of the LFS energy but equal time duration (100 ms).…”

Intracranial interictal functional networks predict the effect of subacute cortical stimulation in focal epilepsy

“…One way these observations can be interpreted is that if we assume that SCS stimulation has an overall inhibitory/disruptive effect on the targeted cortical region, as suggested in [32][33][34], then disruption of areas with high average correlation (or high connectivity) to other regions can suppress seizures. This is also in line with our recent observation in a separate dataset that surgical removal of such high correlation regions appears to lead to seizure freedom [16].…”

The Duration of Motor Responses Evoked with Intracortical Microstimulation in Rats Is Primarily Modulated by Stimulus Amplitude and Train Duration

“…Independently, the parameter of stimulus frequency can be used to limit the spread of the ICMS signal within the cortex. Pulses delivered at frequencies less than 20 Hz prevent the summation of excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials which localizes the activation [ 35 ]. Stimulus train duration is the dominant parameter influencing the accuracy of forelimb movement trajectories.…”