Center for Neurology, Division of Neuropsychology, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
Nat Rev Neurosci. 2011 Nov 30;13(1):63-70. doi: 10.1038/nrn3140.
Despite its clinical relevance, direct electrical stimulation (DES) of the human brain is surprisingly poorly understood. Although we understand several aspects of electrical stimulation at the cellular level, surface DES evokes a complex summation effect in a large volume of brain tissue, and the effect is difficult to predict as it depends on many local and remote physiological and morphological factors. The complex stimulation effects are reflected in the heterogeneity of behavioural effects that are induced by DES, which range from evocation to inhibition of responses - sometimes even when DES is applied at the same cortical site. Thus, it is a misconception that DES - in contrast to other neuroscience techniques - allows us to draw unequivocal conclusions about the role of stimulated brain areas.
尽管直接电刺激（DES）在临床上具有重要意义，但人们对其的了解却出人意料地有限。尽管我们在细胞水平上理解了电刺激的几个方面，但表面 DES 在大脑的大体积组织中引发了复杂的总和效应，而且由于它取决于许多局部和远程的生理和形态学因素，因此很难预测其效果。复杂的刺激效应反映在 DES 诱导的行为效应的异质性上，这些效应从反应的激发到抑制不等 - 有时即使在相同的皮质部位施加 DES 也是如此。因此，与其他神经科学技术相比，DES 可以让我们得出关于刺激脑区作用的明确结论，这种观点是一种误解。
