Animal studies in deep brain stimulation research

Abstract

The main goal of deep brain stimulation (DBS) research is to offer a better insight into the mechanism of action of DBS. In addition, it is also necessary to provide an experimental basis for new therapeutic applications, for novel targets, and for optimizing stimulation parameters in psychiatric disorders. This chapter provides a description of the essential advantages of animal research to achieve these goals. In addition, we discuss the limitations of animal research and suggest that a fruitful approach is offered by a careful selection of disease-independent neurobehavioral domains, for which translational methods are available. Two examples of such domains, anxiety and reward processing, are presented.