High-density diffuse optical tomography imaging of cortical network response to deep brain stimulation for essential tremor

Deep-brain stimulation (DBS) of the ventro-intermediate nucleus of the thalamus (VIM) can provide substantial clinical motor benefit to Essential Tremor (ET) patients. However, the DBS impact on the functional connectivity (FC) of networks is difficult to study using standard neuroimaging modalities either due to limited temporal resolution (PET) or safety concerns from contraindications (fMRI). In this study, we tested the feasibility and sensitivity of High-Density Diffuse Optical Tomography (HD-DOT), which avoids these concerns, for mapping cortical blood flow responses to sensory stimuli and measuring resting state cortical FC in ET patients with VIM DBS OFF vs ON.