Accuracy of subthalamic nucleus targeting by T2, FLAIR and SWI-3-Tesla MRI confirmed by microelectrode recordings.

Background Successful deep brain stimulation is mostly dependent on accurate positioning of the leads at the optimal target points. We investigated whether the identification of the subthalamic nucleus in T2-weighted 3-T MRI, fluid-attenuated inversion recovery 3-T MRI and susceptibility-weighted 3-T MRI is confirmed by intraoperative neurological microelectrode recording.