Figure 3. Overview of the SlicerNetstim extension.

The current setup shows interfaces with specific commercial products. Similar interfaces to competing tools are planned and will be included in the future. A PDF plan exported from Brainlab Elements is used as an input to the Stereotactic Plan module to store the planned trajectory as a Slicer Transform. The NeuroOmega system is connected via its Software Development Kit (SDK) through the Neurophysiology module, providing continuous updates about the drive depth and electrophysiological channel input. Finally, in the Lead-OR module, the Ben-Gun configuration is defined by selecting the used trajectories and assigning them to input channels from the NeuroOmega device. Using a transform hierarchy, the spatial position of the microelectrode is defined: the Ben-Gun translation is transformed by the distance to the target, this one itself being transformed by the planned trajectory. By doing so, the features extracted from the respective microelectrode recordings (MERs) can be mapped to their spatial location. At our center, an automatic pipeline for preprocessing data retrieved from a picture archiving and communication system (PACS) system is setup using the NORA medical imaging platform (https://www.nora-imaging.com/) to automatically run the core Lead-DBS pipeline once images arrive in the hospital’s PACS system. This part (right-hand side) is not discussed in detail since it is largely specific to our center.