TS_DBS_Atlas.pdf

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a debilitating neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by tics, or involuntary movements and vocal outbursts. Some patients experience severe symptoms without relief from conventional therapies. For these patients, deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been explored as an alternative therapy for modulating the neural activity of brain circuits implicated in TS. However, responses to DBS vary greatly across TS patients and we do not have a quantitative understanding of where or how to deliver DBS in order to produce therapeutic response. The goal of this study is to combine structural imaging (MRI, CT) of TS DBS patients to visualize DBS electrode locations in a common brain atlas space to make cross-subject comparisons of electrode locations relative to structural anatomy and their correlation to clinical outcomes. In collaboration with the Tourette Association of America International DBS Registry, we have collected MR and CT imaging for 122 TS DBS patients from 12 sites worldwide. In this seminar, I will outline the image registration methods used to generate an atlas from a heterogeneous imaging dataset and to express DBS electrode locations in this common atlas space.