• Andrew C Willsie and Alan D Dorval.
• Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
• Neuromodulation. 2015 Oct 1; 18 (7): 542-50; discussion 550-1.

ObjectiveDeep brain stimulation (DBS) alleviates symptoms associated with some neurological disorders by stimulating specific deep brain targets. However, incomplete stimulation of the target region can provide suboptimal therapy, and spread of stimulation to tissue outside the target can generate side-effects. Existing DBS electrodes generate stimulation profiles that are roughly spherical, neither matching nor enabling the mapping of therapeutic targets. We present a novel electrode design and will perform computational modeling of the new design to investigate its use as a next generation DBS electrode.Materials And MethodsComputational simulations of a finite element model are performed for both the novel electrode and for a commercially available DBS electrode.ResultsComputational modeling results show that this new electrode design is able to steer stimulation radially around the device, creating voltage distributions that may more closely match deep brain targets.ConclusionThe ability to better match the anatomy and compensate for targeting errors during implantation will enable strict localization of the generated stimulation fields to within target tissues, potentially providing more complete symptom alleviation while reducing the occurrence of side-effects.© 2015 International Neuromodulation Society.

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