Evoked Resonant Neural Activity Supports Physiology-Guided Asleep Deep Brain Stimulation

<title>Abstract</title> <p>General anesthesia increasingly facilitates asleep deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery but suppresses spontaneous electrophysiological signals used to guide lead placement. Here, we investigated whether evoked resonant neural activity (ERNA), a stimulation-evoked biomarker of basal ganglia circuitry, remains informative during asleep DBS. We analyzed intraoperative recordings from a multisite cohort of 45 patients (86 hemispheres) undergoing subthalamic nucleus or globus pallidus internus DBS under awake and anesthetized conditions. Anesthesia markedly attenuated spontaneous beta and high-frequency oscillatory activity. Although ERNA amplitude was reduced at matched stimulation intensities, increasing stimulation current restored high-amplitude, spatially localized responses while preserving anatomical specificity. Across both targets, ERNA spatial distributions remained stable across awake and anesthetized states, co-localized with established motor-network biomarkers, and retrospectively identified electrode levels associated with the greatest postoperative therapeutic window. These retrospective findings position stimulation-evoked circuit interrogation as a complement to imaging for physiology-guided asleep DBS and as a candidate signal for contact prioritization. Prospective studies are warranted to determine whether ERNA-guided decisions improve placement, programming efficiency and clinical outcomes.</p>