Programming: General Aspects

Over the past two decades, a great deal has been learned about how the brain responses to the individual deep brain stimulation (DBS) pulse, although which of those underlie benefit or adverse effects is unclear. It is now generally known that the primary effect is generating action potentials in axons in the vicinity of the DBS cathode (negative contact). The DBS pulse does so by depolarizing the cell membrane of the neuronal axon to initiate openings of voltage-gated ionic conductance channels, primarily on the axons.