About this Research Topic
Several brain disorders such as Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, epilepsy, tinnitus, and autism spectrum disorder are linked with abnormal brain synchrony and/or pathological connectivity. Reorganization of neural circuits by electrical or magnetic stimulation has the potential to restore physiological network dynamics. Neural circuits can be modulated by a variety of invasive and non-invasive stimulation strategies, e.g., deep brain stimulation (DBS) or transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), targeting different areas in the midbrain or cortex. Increasing evidence indicates that long-lasting therapeutic effects that outlasts the cessation of stimulation may crucially depend on counteracting abnormal neural synchrony as well as reshaping pathological synaptic connectivity.
Recent findings suggest that complex spatio-temporal stimulation patterns promote plasticity in target regions, possibly leading to long-lasting stimulation after-effects. For instance, timely coordinated phase resetting by DBS or in-phase/anti-phase dual-site tACS can cause pronounced changes in neural connections mediated by synaptic plasticity, ultimately causing a long-lasting unlearning of abnormal neural synchrony. Stimulation-induced synaptic reshaping of plastic neural networks through spike-timing-dependent-plasticity (STDP) has been addressed in a number of theoretical and computational studies. Yet, identifying optimal stimulation patterns that can induce favorable changes of synaptic connectivity in disease-related brain areas still remains a challenge.
Predictions made by modeling studies provide testable hypotheses for the improvement of clinically used stimulation techniques and are crucial to further leverage the power of these clinical trials. This research topic aims to explore the impact of plasticity on the effectiveness of different brain stimulation modalities such as DBS, tDCS, tACS and TMS. This includes network dynamics modeling underlying changes in synaptic plasticity, structural plasticity and/or homeostatic plasticity due to stimulation on different scales ranging from microcircuits to large-scale networks. Particularly, we seek to identify potential plasticity-related mechanisms that could be targeted for optimized brain stimulation therapies and that would improve long-lasting stimulation effects.
This research topic is open to theoretical and computational studies. Original research articles, review articles as well as opinion and perspective articles providing insights into the role of plasticity in the development and optimization of therapeutic brain stimulation strategies are welcomed. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
• Stimulation-induced changes in synaptic, structural and/or homeostatic plasticity,
• Plasticity-related changes of brain oscillations following electrical/magnetic stimulation,
• Plasticity mechanisms underlying long-lasting brain stimulation effects,
• Responses of adaptive neural networks to electrical/magnetic stimulation,
• Stimulation strategies informed by plasticity mechanisms,
• Tuning of spatio-temporal stimulation patterns to exploit plasticity,
• Multi-stability in plastic networks and computational models of diseased states.
We expect the contributions will lead to the further development of spatio-temporally patterned stimulation informed by plasticity in a variety of single-site and multi-site stimulation protocols optimized for unlearning abnormal patterns of brain activity and connectivity by shifting the dynamics of the diseased brain networks toward healthy attractor states.
Recent findings suggest that complex spatio-temporal stimulation patterns promote plasticity in target regions, possibly leading to long-lasting stimulation after-effects. For instance, timely coordinated phase resetting by DBS or in-phase/anti-phase dual-site tACS can cause pronounced changes in neural connections mediated by synaptic plasticity, ultimately causing a long-lasting unlearning of abnormal neural synchrony. Stimulation-induced synaptic reshaping of plastic neural networks through spike-timing-dependent-plasticity (STDP) has been addressed in a number of theoretical and computational studies. Yet, identifying optimal stimulation patterns that can induce favorable changes of synaptic connectivity in disease-related brain areas still remains a challenge.
Predictions made by modeling studies provide testable hypotheses for the improvement of clinically used stimulation techniques and are crucial to further leverage the power of these clinical trials. This research topic aims to explore the impact of plasticity on the effectiveness of different brain stimulation modalities such as DBS, tDCS, tACS and TMS. This includes network dynamics modeling underlying changes in synaptic plasticity, structural plasticity and/or homeostatic plasticity due to stimulation on different scales ranging from microcircuits to large-scale networks. Particularly, we seek to identify potential plasticity-related mechanisms that could be targeted for optimized brain stimulation therapies and that would improve long-lasting stimulation effects.
This research topic is open to theoretical and computational studies. Original research articles, review articles as well as opinion and perspective articles providing insights into the role of plasticity in the development and optimization of therapeutic brain stimulation strategies are welcomed. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
• Stimulation-induced changes in synaptic, structural and/or homeostatic plasticity,
• Plasticity-related changes of brain oscillations following electrical/magnetic stimulation,
• Plasticity mechanisms underlying long-lasting brain stimulation effects,
• Responses of adaptive neural networks to electrical/magnetic stimulation,
• Stimulation strategies informed by plasticity mechanisms,
• Tuning of spatio-temporal stimulation patterns to exploit plasticity,
• Multi-stability in plastic networks and computational models of diseased states.
We expect the contributions will lead to the further development of spatio-temporally patterned stimulation informed by plasticity in a variety of single-site and multi-site stimulation protocols optimized for unlearning abnormal patterns of brain activity and connectivity by shifting the dynamics of the diseased brain networks toward healthy attractor states.
Keywords: Brain stimulation, brain disorders, synaptic plasticity, structural plasticity, homeostatic plasticity, synchronization, neural oscillations, network models, network dynamics., network physiology
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