Bart Nuttin
Laboratory for Experimental Functional Neurosurgery, K.U.Leuven
e-mail: bart.nuttin@uz.kuleuven.be
phone +32 16 34 08 59
address: UZ Neurochirurgie, Herestraat 49, 3000 Leuven, BELGIUM
Current team members
Group leader: Bart Nuttin
Postdoctoral scientists: Kris van Kuyck, Dimiter Prodanov
Ph.D. Students: Marleen Welkenhuysen, Laura Luyten, Silke Musa, Ivan Gligorijevic, Maarten Moens, Dirk Liessens
Support personnel: John Das
Science, relevant to NERF
A last resort for severely-suffering and treatment-resistant patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder or major depression disorder is a neurosurgical intervention in the brain. Neuromodulation is the field of electrically or chemically altering the signal transmission in the nervous system by implanted devices in order to excite, inhibit or tune the activities of neurons or neural networks and produce therapeutic effects. In the Laboratory for Experimental Functional Neurosurgery, we aim to improve treatment of mental and neurological disorders with electrical brain stimulation by unraveling the involved neurocircuitry and developing innovative new stimulation devices. At current, we examine a first generation device with multiple small contacts for stimulation and recording of single neurons that would enable stimulation in response to neuronal activity related to the symptoms (feedback stimulation). In addition, the same technology will be used for the development of a stimulation device for the functional restoration of the damaged neuronal system. Several neurological disorders (e.g. stroke) result in difficult-to-treat neurological symptoms induced by a lesion cavity in the brain. The idea is to bridge the lesion by recording neuronal activity on one side of the lesion cavity and stimulating on another side in order to restore function.
Potential interactions with NERF
With our expertise in neuromodulation techniques in freely moving animals, we will have a valuable contribution in investigating the bi-directional communication between neurons and hardware, and in neurocircuitry analysis. Moreover, our work in disease models implies an immediate carry-over to medical applications, which opens new horizons for treatment with neuromodulation.
Selected publications
- Deep brain stimulation of the ventral internal capsule/ventral striatum for obsessive-compulsive disorder: worldwide experience. Greenberg BD, Gabriels LA, Malone DA Jr, Rezai AR, Friehs GM, Okun MS, Shapira NA, Foote KD, Cosyns PR, Kubu CS, Malloy PF, Salloway SP, Giftakis JE, Rise MT, Machado AG, Baker KB, Stypulkowski PH, Goodman WK, Rasmussen SA, Nuttin BJ. Mol Psychiatry. 2008 May 20 [Epub ahead of print].
- Towards a neurocircuitry in anorexia nervosa: Evidence from functional neuroimaging studies. van Kuyck K, Gérard N, Laere KV, Casteels C, Pieters G, Gabriëls L, Nuttin B. J Psychiatr Res. 2009 May 12 [Epub ahead of print].
- Metabolic imaging of anterior capsular stimulation in refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder: a key role for the subgenual anterior cingulate and ventral striatum. Van Laere K, Nuttin B, Gabriels L, Dupont P, Rasmussen S, Greenberg BD, Cosyns P. J Nucl Med. 2006 May; 47(5):740-7.
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