Immediate effects of deep brain stimulation of anterior thalamic nuclei on executive functions and emotion–attention interaction in humans

Abstract

We found immediate objective effects of ANT-DBS on human cognitive control and emotion-attention interaction. We suggest that ANT-DBS compromised response inhibition and enhanced attention allocation to threat due to altered functioning of neural networks that involve the DBS-target, ANT, and the regions connected to it such as ACC. The results highlight the need to consider affective and cognitive side-effects in addition to the therapeutic effect when adjusting stimulation parameters. Furthermore, this study introduces a novel window into cognitive and affective processes by modulating the associative and limbic networks with direct stimulation of key nodes in the thalamus.