Van Hartevelt, Tim J.Cabral, JoanaMøller, ArneFitzGerald, James J.Green, Alex L.Deco, GustavoKringelbach, Morten L.2016-04-222016-04-222015van Hartevelt TJ, Cabral J, Møller A, FitzGerald JJ, Green AL, Aziz TZ, Deco G, Kringelbach ML. Evidence from a rare case study for Hebbian-like changes in structural connectivity induced by long-term deep brain stimulation. Front Behav Neurosci. 2015;9:167. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2015.001671662-5153http://hdl.handle.net/10230/26159It is unclear whether Hebbian-like learning occurs at the level of long-range white matter connections in humans, i.e., where measurable changes in structural connectivity (SC) are correlated with changes in functional connectivity. However, the behavioral changes observed after deep brain stimulation (DBS) suggest the existence of such Hebbian-like mechanisms occurring at the structural level with functional consequences. In this rare case study, we obtained the full network of white matter connections of one patient with Parkinson’s disease (PD) before and after long-term DBS and combined it with a computational model of ongoing activity to investigate the effects of DBS-induced long-term structural changes. The results show that the long-term effects of DBS on resting-state functional connectivity is best obtained in the computational model by changing the structural weights from the subthalamic nucleus (STN) to the putamen and the thalamus in a Hebbian-like manner. Moreover, long-term DBS also significantly changed the SC towards normality in terms of model-based measures of segregation and integration of information processing, two key concepts of brain organization. This novel approach using computational models to model the effects of Hebbian-like changes in SC allowed us to causally identify the possible underlying neural mechanisms of long-term DBS using rare case study data. In time, this could help predict the efficacy of individual DBS targeting and identify novel DBS targets.application/pdfeng© 2015 van Hartevelt, Cabral, Møller, FitzGerald, Green, Aziz, Deco and Kringelbach. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00167Deep brain stimulationHebbian-like learningParkinson’s diseaseDTISubthalamic nucleusinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess