Intelligent Control Strategies for Neurostimulation

Neurodevices for the management of nervous system disorders have been recognized as most promising through the coming decades. Technological development is being spurred on as drugs and other standard therapies have reached diminishing returns. New data enabled by cutting-edge telemetric devices will spin off new business models, for example, in seizure rhythm management. Implantable neurostimulation devices already exist as adjunct therapy for intractable epilepsy, but paradoxically, age-old feedback control strategies remain largely unknown or underutilized in the field. In this chapter we outline strategies for intelligent feedback control of pathological oscillations. We review the state of the art in implant-able devices for epilepsy and the experimental evidence for improved performance via feedback control. Then we extend an existing body of work from open-loop to continuous feedback control of phase-based models of hypersynchronization. Conversion of the results to practical devices is explored via pseudostate vector reconstruction. We conclude by outlining key components of research for continued progress in this field.