Apparatus and method for calibrating invasive electric desynchronizing neurostimulation

摘要

The invention relates to an apparatus for stimulating neurons having a pathological synchronous and oscillatory neural activity, the apparatus including a stimulation unit having a plurality of stimulation contacts to stimulate neurons in a patients brain and/or spinal cord with electric stimuli, a measurement unit for recording test signals that represent a neural activity of the stimulated neurons, and a control and analysis unit. Furthermore, the stimulation contacts of the stimulation unit apply stimuli, and the control and analysis unit selects the stimulation contacts, the stimuli of which cause the phase of the pathological synchronous and oscillatory neural activity of the stimulated neurons to be reset. The selected stimulation contacts then apply phase-resetting stimuli with a time delay, and the control and analysis unit verifies whether the pathological synchronous and oscillatory neural activity of the stimulated neurons is suppressed by said time-delayed stimuli.

主权项

1. An apparatus for stimulating neurons with a pathologically synchronous and oscillatory neural activity, comprising:
a stimulation unit having a plurality of stimulation contacts for stimulating neurons in at least one of a brain and a spinal cord of a patient using electrical stimuli; a measuring unit for recording measured signals, the measured signals reproducing a neural activity of the stimulated neurons; and a control and analysis unit for controlling the stimulation unit and for analyzing the measured signals, wherein the control and analysis unit is configured to:
control the stimulation unit to apply the electrical stimuli using the stimulation contacts;select the stimulation contacts, whose electrical stimuli effect a phase reset of the pathologically synchronous and oscillatory neural activity of the respective stimulated neurons based on the measured signals recorded in response to the application of the electrical stimuli;control the stimulation unit such that the selected stimulation contacts apply phase resetting stimuli pairwise with a time offset;determine, based on measured signals recorded by the measuring unit in response to application of the phase resetting stimuli, whether the applied phase resetting stimuli suppress the pathologically synchronous and oscillatory neural activity of the respective stimulated neurons;determine, based on the measured signals recorded in response to the phase-resetting stimuli by a pair of stimulation contacts, whether the phase resetting stimuli effect an increase in the pathologically synchronous and oscillatory activity of the neurons; andselect the stimulation contacts that are determined to suppress the pathologically synchronous and oscillatory neural activity of the respective stimulated neurons.