RESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Long-term studies of subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) in patients with Parkinson's disease have shown potential cognitive and linguistic side-effects. In this pilot study, we examined whether direct monopolar stimulation in the ventral, associative STN would result in language effects. METHODS: Three subjects participated in two linguistic tasks targeting language generation (language samples) and language composition (syntactic/grammatical structures). All subjects were tested in ON-/OFF-associative stimulation settings. The subjects' Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale scores in ON/OFF medication were taken; all subjects' scores indicated that DBS would be beneficial. Testing was conducted in the associative STN at varying stimulation settings of amplitude (80% of previously determined side-effect threshold), pulse width, and frequency. RESULTS: Linguistic functioning was affected by electrical stimulation to the associative STN. The data reflected a general decline in linguistic functioning in the ON stimulation setting. CONCLUSION: Our data support previous findings implicating STN stimulation in cognitive-linguistic effects. A larger patient group with a blinded methodology is warranted.
