Pre-Filtering of Stimuli for Improved Energy Efficiency in Electrical Neural Stimulation

Conference paper (2022)

Authors

F. Varkevisser Bio-Electronics - EEMCS
A. Rashidi Bio-Electronics - EEMCS
T.M. Lopes Marta da Costa Bio-Electronics - EEMCS
Vasiliki Giagka Bio-Electronics - EEMCS , Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM
W.A. Serdijn Bio-Electronics - EEMCS , Erasmus MC
Research Group
Bio-Electronics (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2022 F. Varkevisser, A. Rashidi, T.M. Lopes Marta da Costa, Vasiliki Giagka, W.A. Serdijn
DOI
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https://doi.org/10.1109/BioCAS54905.2022.9948643
Electrical stimulation Neuron modeling Neuro-modulation Energy transfer efficiency Frequency spectrum
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Published Date

2022

Language

English

Reuse Rights

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Microelectronics

Research Group

Bio-Electronics

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.