Flexible charge balanced stimulator with 5.6 fC accuracy for 140 nC injections

Sudip Nag, Xiaofeng Jia, Nitish V. Thakor, Dinesh Sharma

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

27 Scopus citations

Abstract

Electrical stimulations of neuronal structures must ensure net injected charges to be zero for biological safety and voltage compliance reasons. We present a novel architecture of general purpose biphasic constant current stimulator that exhibits less than 5.6 fC error while injecting 140 nC charges using 1.4 mA currents. The floating current sources and conveyor switch based system can operate in monopolar or bipolar modes. Anodic-first or cathodic-first pulses with optional inter-phase delays have been demonstrated with zero quiescent current requirements at the analog front-end. The architecture eliminates blocking capacitors, electrode shorting and complex feedbacks. Bench-top and in-vivo measurement results have been presented with emulated electrode impedances (resistor-capacitor network), Ag-AgCl electrodes in saline and in-vivo (acute) peripheral nerve stimulations in anesthetized rats.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number6302212
Pages (from-to)266-275
Number of pages10
JournalIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems
Volume7
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013

Keywords

  • Charge balancing
  • electrical stimulation
  • floating current source
  • muscle evoked potentials (MEP)

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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