Systems and methods for the treatment of pain through neural fiber stimulation

摘要

Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for the treatment of pain through activation of select neural fibers. The neural fibers may comprise one or more afferent neural fibers and/or one or more efferent neural fibers. If afferent fibers are stimulated, alone or in combination with efferent fibers, a therapeutically effective amount of electrical stimulation is applied to activate afferent pathways in a manner approximating natural afferent activity. The afferent fibers may be associated with primary receptors of muscle spindles, golgi tendon organs, secondary receptors of muscle spindles, joint receptors, touch receptors, and other types of mechanoreceptors and/or proprioceptors. If efferent fibers are stimulated, alone or in combination with afferent fibers, a therapeutically effective amount of electrical stimulation is applied to activate intrafusal and/or extrafusal muscle fibers, which results in an indirect activation of afferent fibers associated therewith.

主权项

1. A method comprising the step of:
electrically stimulating target efferent nerve fibers through an electrode inserted in-vivo to generate an action potential in the target efferent nerve fibers to active muscle fibers while avoiding generation of action potentials in non-target Type III and IV nerve fibers in an animal to reduce a perception of pain by the animal, through activation of the target efferent nerve fibers wherein the target efferent nerve fibers are located outside a central nervous system of the animal.