Prospects for Building a Therapeutic Cortical Stimulator

Abstract

Ventricular fibrillation is an undesirable bioelectrical event in excitable tissue. Implantable cardiac pacemakers have extended the lives of countless patients. Such resounding clinical successes suggest the possibility of treating other adverse bioelectrical phenomena with implantable devices. In this chapter we consider the technical challenges to developing an implantable device to treat epilepsy via cortical stimulation. Following a brief review of recent literature supporting this approach, we will form a general description of such devices. Each stage in our proposed device will be introduced with a general discussion of design considerations, and, where possible, related to examples of existing or emerging implantable therapeutic stimulators.

I thank S. Cranstoun of the Neuroengineering Group at the University of Pennsylvania for helpful discussions