High-frequency deep brain stimulation in the globus pallidus has been shown to improve the symptoms of multiple disorders including Parkinson's disease, dystonia, and Tourette syndrome. However, the effects of pallidal stimulation on neuronal activityremain poorly understood. In this study, we used multielec-trode recording and microstimulation in a normal behaving primate to study the effects of pallidal stimulation on local neuronal activity. We used multiple stimulation protocols varying in stimulus frequency and pattern. Most pallidal neurons responded to each of the protocols by altering their firing rate and pattern but the form of the response varied significantly across the neuronal population. We used principal component analysis to identify the primary features that make up those complex responses. In addition, a comparison of task-related changes in neuronal activity during different stimulation patterns revealed that the neuronal encoding of the task and the stimulation was primarily independent. These results support the notion that stimulation does not block all information flow from the basal ganglia via either inhibition or complete locking, but rather enables the partial transmission of behaviorally significant information alongthe cortico-basal ganglia loop.
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