ABSTRACT
Microelectrode recording has been used for the past fifty years to perform surgery
for movement disorders. At the present time, however, there is still debate about
whether it is necessary to perform these surgeries.
In this article we describe the methods most commonly used for microrecording. The
results of surgeries performed with and without microelectrode recording (MER) are
compared. Several questions remain unanswered at present. These include but are not
limited to the following: Does MER improve outcome? Is MER associated with increased
overall risk to the patient? Is the information provided by MER more crucial for ablative
or deep brain stimulation procedures? Recent interest in pooling neurosurgical data
may provide additional insights in this debate.
KEYWORD
Microelectrode - recording - stereotactic - Parkinson's disease - subthalmic nucleus
