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Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation promotes GABA release in the substantia nigra and improves locomotion in hemiparkinsonian rats.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The vestibular system is connected to spinal, cerebellar and cerebral motor control structures and can be selectively activated with external electrodes. The resulting sensation of disturbed balance can be avoided by using stochastic stimulation patterns. Adding noise to the nervous system sometimes improves function. Small clinical trials suggest that stochastic vestibular stimulation (SVS) may improve symptoms in Parkinson's disease. We have investigated this claim and possible mechanisms using the 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) hemilesion model of Parkinson's disease. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Animals were tested in the accelerating rod test and the Montoya staircase test of skilled forelimb use. In 6-OHDA hemilesioned animals, SVS improved rod performance by 56±11 s. At group level L-DOPA treatment had no effect, but positive responders improved time on rod by 60±19 s. Skilled forelimb use was not altered by SVS. To investigate how SVS may influence basal ganglia network activity, intracerebral microdialysis was employed in four regions of interest during and after SVS. In presence of the ?-amino buturic acid (GABA) transporter inhibitor NNC 711, SVS induced an increase in GABA to 150±15% of baseline in the substantia nigra (SN) of unlesioned animals, but had no effect in the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN), the striatum or the ventromedial thalamus (VM). Dopamine release remained stable in all areas, as did GABA and amine concentrations in the SN of unstimulated controls. Following SVS, a sustained increase in GABA concentrations was observed in the ipsilesional, but not in the contralesional SN of 6-OHDA hemilesioned rats. In contrast, L-DOPA treatment produced a similar increase of GABA in the ipsi- and contra-lesional SN. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: SVS improves rod performance in a rat model of Parkinson's disease, possibly by increasing nigral GABA release in a dopamine independent way. We propose that SVS could be useful for treating symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

SUBMITTER: Samoudi G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3253081 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation promotes GABA release in the substantia nigra and improves locomotion in hemiparkinsonian rats.

Samoudi Ghazaleh G Nissbrandt Hans H Dutia Mayank B MB Bergquist Filip F

PloS one 20120106 1

<h4>Background</h4>The vestibular system is connected to spinal, cerebellar and cerebral motor control structures and can be selectively activated with external electrodes. The resulting sensation of disturbed balance can be avoided by using stochastic stimulation patterns. Adding noise to the nervous system sometimes improves function. Small clinical trials suggest that stochastic vestibular stimulation (SVS) may improve symptoms in Parkinson's disease. We have investigated this claim and possi ...[more]

PMID: 22238601

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Project description:Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation has been associated with numerous cognitive and behavioural effects, such as enhancement of visual memory in healthy individuals, improvement of visual deficits in stroke patients, as well as possibly improvement of motor function in Parkinson's disease; yet, the mechanism of action is unclear. Since Parkinson's and other neuropsychiatric diseases are characterized by maladaptive dynamics of brain rhythms, we investigated whether noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation was associated with measurable changes in EEG oscillatory rhythms within theta (4-7.5 Hz), low alpha (8-10 Hz), high alpha (10.5-12 Hz), beta (13-30 Hz) and gamma (31-50 Hz) bands. We recorded the EEG while simultaneously delivering noisy bilateral, bipolar stimulation at varying intensities of imperceptible currents - at 10, 26, 42, 58, 74 and 90% of sensory threshold - to ten neurologically healthy subjects. Using standard spectral analysis, we investigated the transient aftereffects of noisy stimulation on rhythms. Subsequently, using robust artifact rejection techniques and the Least Absolute Shrinkage Selection Operator regression and cross-validation, we assessed the combinations of channels and power spectral features within each EEG frequency band that were linearly related with stimulus intensity. We show that noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation predominantly leads to a mild suppression of gamma power in lateral regions immediately after stimulation, followed by delayed increase in beta and gamma power in frontal regions approximately 20-25 s after stimulation ceased. Ongoing changes in the power of each oscillatory band throughout frontal, central/parietal, occipital and bilateral electrodes predicted the intensity of galvanic vestibular stimulation in a stimulus-dependent manner, demonstrating linear effects of stimulation on brain rhythms. We propose that modulation of neural oscillations is a potential mechanism for the previously-described cognitive and motor effects of vestibular stimulation, and noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation may provide an additional non-invasive means for neuromodulation of functional brain networks.

Project description:BackgroundNoisy galvanic vestibular stimulation (nGVS) has been shown to improve motor performance in people with and without disabilities. Previous investigations on the use of nGVS to improve upper-limb motor performance have focused on unimanual fine motor movements, nevertheless, bimanual gross movements are also essential for conducting activities of daily living and can be affected as a result of cerebral dysfunction. Consequently, in this study we investigated the effects of nGVS on bimanual gross motor performance.MethodsTwelve healthy participants completed a visuomotor task in which they performed bimanual upper-limb movements using two robots. During the task, participants tracked a target that oscillated following a sinusoidal amplitude-modulated trajectory. In half of the trials, participants received subthreshold nGVS, in the other half, they received sham stimulation. Primary outcome measure: percent improvement in root mean square error (RMSE) between the target's and cursors' trajectories. Secondary outcome measures: percent improvement in lag between the cursors and target; and percent improvement in RMSE between the cursors' trajectories. A post-test questionnaire was administered to evaluate the experience of participants.ResultsTracking error was not affected by nGVS: left -2.6(5.5)%, p = 0.128; right -0.9(6.2)%, p = 0.639; nor was bimanual coordination -1.5(9.6)%, p = 0.590. When comparing if one hand was affected more than the other, we did not find a statistically significant difference (-1.7(3.3)%, p = 0.098). Similar results were found for the lag. Questionnaire results indicated that the robotic devices did not limit participants' movements, did not make participants feel unsafe, nor were they difficult to control. Furthermore, participants did not feel unsafe with the nGVS device, nor did they report any discomfort due to nGVS.ConclusionResults suggest that nGVS applied to people without disabilities do not affect bimanual gross motor performance. However, as this was the first study to investigate such effects, stimulation parameters were based on previous unimanual fine motor studies. Future studies should investigate optimal stimulation parameters for improving upper-limb gross motor performance. Overall, participants felt safe using the robotic devices and receiving the noisy electrical stimulation. As such, a similar setup could potentially be employed for subsequent studies investigating the relation between upper-limb performance and nGVS.

Project description:Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) is a non-invasive method of electrically stimulating the vestibular system. We investigated whether the application of GVS can alter the learning of new functional mobility and manual control tasks and whether learning can be retained following GVS application. In a between-subjects experiment design, 36 healthy subjects performed repeated trials, capturing the learning of either (a) a functional mobility task, navigating an obstacle course on a compliant surface with degraded visual cues or (b) a manual control task, using a joystick to null self-roll tilt against a pseudo-random disturbance while seated in the dark. In the "learning" phase of trials, bilateral, bipolar GVS was applied continuously. The GVS waveform also differed between subjects in each task group: (1) white noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation (nGVS) at 0.3 mA (2) high-level random GVS at 0.7 mA (selected from pilot testing as destabilizing, but not painful), or (3) with the absence of stimulation (i.e., sham). Following the "learning" trials, all subjects were blindly transitioned to sham GVS, upon which they immediately completed another series of trials to assess any aftereffects. In the functional mobility task, we found nGVS significantly improved task learning (p = 0.03, mean learning metric 171% more than the sham group). Further, improvements in learning the functional mobility task with nGVS were retained, even once the GVS application was stopped. The benefits in learning with nGVS were not observed in the manual control task. High level GVS tended to inhibit learning in both tasks, but not significantly so. Even once the high-level stimulation was stopped, the impaired performance remained. Improvements in learning with nGVS may be due to increased information throughput resulting from stochastic resonance. The benefit of nGVS for functional mobility, but not manual control nulling, may be due to the multisensory (e.g., visual and proprioceptive), strategic, motor coordination, or spatial awareness aspects of the former task. Learning improvements with nGVS have the potential to benefit individuals who perform functional mobility tasks, such as astronauts, firefighters, high performance athletes, and soldiers.

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Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation promotes GABA release in the substantia nigra and improves locomotion in hemiparkinsonian rats.

Publications

Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation promotes GABA release in the substantia nigra and improves locomotion in hemiparkinsonian rats.

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