Computational study for stimulating mechanism and the optimal geometry of microelectrode in deep-brain stimulation

Deep brain stimulation has obtained an obvious effectiveness for treating various locomotion disorder, but the stimulating mechanism by which these high frequency electrical pulses related to the geometry of electrode act on neuronal activity is unclear. The geometrical electrode model in deep-brain stimulation is established, and the analytic model of electric stimulating area based on the finite element technique is constructed to research electrode geometry, such as the stimulating point array architecture, how to affect the cerebral electric field. The computational results show that the stimulation intensity and action area increase gradually with the growth for the length and the gap of the electrode stimulating point; the stimulating stability approaches the when the length of stimulating point gets twice the length of the gap between the stimulating points. Therefore, the mode of the stimulating point array architecture enables to determine the electrode stimulating location in the deep brain, and plays an important role of the stimulation intensity and action area.