PhD student Ben Ferleger and undergraduate researcher Sarah Cooper will be at the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago this year presenting a poster on some of our recent work using the Activa PC+S. The research project being presented is an investigation into the ‘rebound effect’ whereby essential tremor patients with a deep brain stimulator can have worse-than-normal symptoms immediately following the removal of electrical stimulation. Due to the fact that in future closed-loop DBS  systems may automatically turn on and off stimulation in response to sensed neural biomarkers, the fact that symptoms get worse temporarily with the removal of stimulation needs to inform future algorithm design to ensure effective control of symptoms.

The full SFN Conference Poster information is available here: https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/7883/presentation/44957

A paper written with Medtronic colleagues Duane Bourget, Ben Isaacson, and Melanie Goodman-Kaiser will be presented this week at NER 2019. The paper is titled “Research Development Kit Enabling Expanded Spinal Cord Stimulation Research” and included below is the paper’s abstract. Check out the poster if you are there!

Update 6/13/2019: PDF Available on IEEE

Abstract: Neurostimulation is used to treat a variety of neurological diseases. Historically, these implantable neurostimulator systems have relied on providing therapeutic benefit to patients using tonic, or open-loop, stimulation. In this paper, we review the state of the art in current spinal cord stimulation therapy to identify the needs of the field for a new tool to enable new research. We then present an overview of the design and capabilities of the Nexus-I Research Development Kit for investigational human-use research activities for patients who have been implanted with the Model 97715 Intellis neurostimulator.