DBS Annotator

DBS Annotator is a desktop application for recording and analysing Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) clinical programming sessions. It guides the clinician or researcher through a DBS programming pipeline: initial electrode configuration, clinical scales, and general annotations; real-time stimulation adjustments; and session-specific scale changes and notes. Data are saved in timestamped TSV files. The application can generate structured Word and PDF reports from one session or from several sessions combined.

DBS Annotator was born at the Brain Modulation Lab, Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, USA), then transferred to Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Berlin, Germany), and is from 2026 on maintained at the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering (Geneva, Switzerland).

Note

Version: 0.4.0

Copyright © Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

Contact: lucia.poma@wysscenter.ch

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Getting Started

• Installation
  • For end users
  • Windows — SmartScreen warnings
  • Windows — install via PowerShell
  • macOS / Linux — shell install
  • Updating
  • Data storage
  • Next steps
• Overview
  • Clinical and technical context
  • What DBS Annotator provides
  • Next steps

User Guide

• Quick Start
  • Launching the Application
  • Choosing Your Workflow
  • Interface Overview
  • Next Steps
• Complete Workflow
  • Step 0 — File setup
  • Step 1 — Initial Configuration
  • Step 2 — Session Scale Selection
  • Step 3 — Active Recording
  • Closing the Session
• Annotations-only Workflow
  • Opening the Annotations-only Workflow
  • Recording an Annotation
  • Output File
  • Exporting a Report
  • Closing
• Longitudinal Report
  • Opening the Longitudinal View
  • Loading Session Files
  • Generating the Report
  • Report Contents
  • Tips
• Output Format
  • TSV Data File
  • Word / PDF Reports
  • Timestamps and timezone

Reference

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Changelog

Developer Guide

• Contributing to DBS Annotator
• Releasing
• API Reference

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Quick Overview

Complete Workflow	Record stimulation parameters, clinical scales, and notes step by step in a timestamped TSV table. Export a structured report (Word / PDF) with tables, electrode diagrams, and session-scale timeline charts.
Annotations-only Workflow	Quick timestamped text notes.
Session and longitudinal reports	Combine single or multiple session files into one comparative document with overview tables, clinical and session-scale charts, electrode diagrams, and programming summaries.
BIDS-compliant output	Data saved as sub-XXXX_ses-YYYYMMDD_task-<TASK>_run-XX_<type-of-data>.<ext>.
Self-contained desktop app	Packaged installers (.msi, .dmg, .deb); no separate Python runtime required.