Design of a Tetro-Drive for closed-loop Deep Brain Stimulation systems
Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) can be used to treat the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Available DBS systems provide a constant amount of stimulation to neural tissue at all times. These are known as open-loop systems, which over-stimulate the neural tissue, leading to undesired side effects. A closed-loop DBS system would record neural activity and provide stimulation only if it anticipates movement. In preclinical studies, the target areas in the brain of rodents are very small with high probability of missing it. To overcome this challenge, we developed an electronic device that will be able to simultaneously stimulate and record neural activity, known as a Tetrode Drive. With this device we will have the capacity of relocating the electrode vertically even after the electrode has been implanted increasing the probability of data acquisition collected per animal and decreasing the need of using large numbers of lab-animals.
