GRADUAL RECRUITMENT OF MUSCLE/NEURAL EXCITABLE TISSUE USING HIGH-RATE ELECTRICAL STIMULATION PARAMETERS

摘要

A neurostimulator system (170) stimulates excitable muscle or neural tissue through multiple electrodes (E1, E2, ... En) fast enough to induce stochastic neural firing, thereby acting to restore 'spontaneous' neural activity. The type of stimulation provided by the neurostimulator involves the use of a high rate, e.g., greater than about 2000 Hz, pulsitile stimulation signal generated by a high rate pulse generator (172). The stream of pulses generated by the high rate pulse generator is amplitude modulated in an output driver circuit (176) with control information, provided by a modulation control element (178). Such amplitude-modulated pulsitile stimulation exploits the subtle electro physiological differences between cells comprising excitable tissue in order to desynchronize action potentials within the population of excitable tissue. Such desynchronization induces a wider distribution of population thresholds, as well as a wider electrical dynamic range, thereby better mimicking biological recruitment characteristics.