Papers of the Week

Facial neuropathic pain syndromes such as trigeminal neuralgia are debilitating disorders commonly managed by medications, vascular decompression, and/or ablative procedures. In trigeminal neuralgia cases unresponsive to these interventions, trigeminal deafferentation pain syndrome (TDPS) can emerge and remain refractory to any further attempts at these conventional therapies. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) and motor cortex stimulation are 2 neuromodulatory treatments that have demonstrated efficacy in small case series of TDPS yet remain largely underutilized. In addition, functional MRI (fMRI) is a tool that can help localize central processing of evoked stimuli such as mechanically triggered facial pain. In this study, we present a case report and operative technique in a patient with TDPS who underwent fMRI to guide the operative management and placement of dual targets in the sensory thalamus and motor cortex.