Electrical high frequency stimulation (HFS) of deep brain regions is a method
shown to be clinically effective in different types of movement and
neurological disorders. In order to shed light on its mode of action a
computational model of the basal ganglia network coupled the HFS as injection
current into the cells of the subthalamic nucleus (STN). Its overall increased
activity rendered a faithful transmission of sensorimotor input through
thalamo-cortical relay cells possible. Our contribution uses this model by
Rubin and Terman (J Comput Neurosci, 16, 211-223, 2004) as a starting point and
integrates recent findings on the importance of the extracellular
concentrations of the inhibiting neurotransmitter GABA. We are able to show in
this computational study that besides electrical stimulation a high
concentration of GABA and its resulting conductivity in STN cells is able to
re-establish faithful thalamocortical relaying, which otherwise broke down in
the simulated parkinsonian state
