IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering
-
The cable model for electrical stimulation near the terminal of a passive fiber is derived for excitation by an arbitrary, time-varying, applied extracellular field. Unless the termination impedance is comparable to that of mammalian node of Ranvier, the end-conditions require the longitudinal intracellular current at the fiber terminal to be negligibly small. ⋯ Chronaxie for stimulation near the terminal may be much smaller than at a distance from the terminal and the strength-duration curve may be nonmonotonic. These differences may have significant implications for any application of electrical stimulation where fiber terminations may play a role in the excitatory process.
-
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng · Jul 1993
Comparative StudyExcitation of dorsal root fibers in spinal cord stimulation: a theoretical study.
In epidural spinal cord stimulation it is likely that not only dorsal column fibers are activated, but that dorsal root fibers will be involved as well. In this investigation a volume conductor model of the spinal cord was used and dorsal root fibers were modeled by an electrical network including fiber excitation. The effects of varying some geometrical fiber characteristics, as well as the influence of the dorsal cerebrospinal fluid layer and the electrode configuration on the threshold stimulus for their excitation, were assessed. ⋯ The results of this modeling study predict that, besides the well known influence of fiber diameter, the curvature of the dorsal root fibers and the angle between these fibers and the spinal cord axis were of major influence on their threshold values. Because of these effects, threshold stimuli of dorsal root fibers were relatively low as compared to dorsal column fibers. Excitation of the dorsal root fibers occurred near the entry point of the fibers.
-
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng · Jul 1993
Comparative StudySelective control of muscle activation with a multipolar nerve cuff electrode.
Acute experiments were performed on adult cats to study selective activation of medial gastrocnemius, soleus, tibialis anterior, and extensor digitorum longus with a cuff electrode. A spiral nerve cuff containing twelve "dot" electrodes was implanted around the sciatic nerve and evoked muscle twitch forces were recorded in six experiments. Spatially isolated "dot" electrodes in four geometries: monopolar, longitudinal tripolar, tripolar with four common anodes, and two parallel tripoles, were combined with transverse field steering current(s) from an anode(s) located 180 degrees around from the cathode(s) to activate different regions of the nerve trunk. ⋯ We also found that tripoles with individual dot anodes were more selective than tripoles with four common dot anodes. Stimulation with two parallel tripoles was effective in activating selectively fascicles that could not be activated selectively with only a single tripole. The multipolar cuff proved an effective method to control selectively and progressively the force in muscles innervated by fascicles that were well defined at the level of the cuff.