Preface

It is an honor to be asked to write the forward for this important book which addresses deep brain stimulation （DBS）in China. Drs Zhang and Meng have masterfully assembled the practices and outcomes from across all of the Chinese provinces. DBS has been growing rapidly in Asia，and China is poised to become a future leader in the field.

Dr. Hu and Zhang，in a recent article published in Neuromodulation，summarized the Chinese DBS experience. The publications from China have been on the rise and from 2000 to 2009，there were 187 papers which appeared in Chinese journals. Interestingly，there were 23 in English journals that were written by Chinese authors. This level of productivity accounted for about a quarter of all DBS publications in either English or Chinese.

There have now been several thousand patients treated with DBS therapy in China. There are more people in China who could potentially benefit from this therapy，and for that reason alone this book is a critically important start to an important dialogue. The book addresses diseases，targets，mechanisms of action，programming，intra-operative practices，and DBS outcomes. It also covers all of the current，and many of the future indications for DBS.

There are many challenges that will need to be addressed with DBS therapy in China. These challenges include homemade DBS hardware，formation and maintenance of proper DBS interdisciplinary teams，and the formal fellowship training of neurologists and neurosurgeons in DBS and movement disorders. There also exists a lack of guidelines and regulations to guide best practices，however，we expect that these materials will evolve quickly. It is likely that over the next decade China will experience the biggest growth in the DBS market，and that this growth will likely be paralleled by important research advances. This book is a must read for clinicians and researchers interested in being a part of the DBS revolution in China.