Pre-Filtering of Stimuli for Improved Energy Efficiency in Electrical Neural Stimulation
Francesc Varkevisser (TU Delft - Bio-Electronics)
Amin Rashidi (TU Delft - Bio-Electronics)
T. Costa (TU Delft - Bio-Electronics)
Vasiliki Giagka (Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, TU Delft - Bio-Electronics)
W.A. Serdijn (TU Delft - Bio-Electronics, Erasmus MC)
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Abstract
This work proposes a guideline for designing more energy-efficient electrical stimulators by analyzing the frequency spectrum of the stimuli. It is shown that the natural low-pass characteristic of the neuron’s membrane limits the energy transfer efficiency from the stimulator to the cell. Thus, to improve the transfer efficiency, it is proposed to pre-filter the high-frequency components of the stimulus. The method is validated for a Hodgkin-Huxley (HH) axon cable model using NEURON v8.0 software. To this end, the required activation energy is simulated for rectangular pulses with durations between 10 µs and 5 ms, which are low-pass filtered with cut-off frequencies of 0.5-50 kHz. Simulations show a 51.5% reduction in the required activation energy for the shortest pulse width (i.e., 10 µs) after filtering at 5 kHz. It is also shown that the minimum required activation energy can be decreased by 11.04% when an appropriate pre-filter is applied. Finally, we draw a perspective for future use of this method to improve the selectivity of electrical stimulation.