Electrophysiological Assessment of Peripheral Nerve Stimulation through Somatosensory Evoked Potential in Rat Hindlimb

Somatosensory feedback is critical to the sense of touch for amputees when controlling prostheses. This can either be accomplished by stimulating the peripheral nerve or through brain (intracortical) stimulation. By stimulating the peripheral nerve, sensory information is transmitted to the brain via the afferent somatosensory pathway. This information in the form of electrical signals can be assessed through somatosensory evoked potential (SEP). In this study, the effect of stimulation parameters were investigated using a flexible ECoG electrode array placed on the rat brain cortex. The aim was to evaluate the electrophysiological signal recordings following the variation in stimulation parameters. We varied the frequency from 60–100Hz at 2 s intervals when stimulating the sciatic nerve for two rats. The results of our assessment shows a steady and continuous waveform as observed from the ECoG recordings. We recorded the maximum amplitude when the stimulation intensities was increased. After comparing the results obtained for the two rats, we noticed no significant change. To this end, we established an SEP protocol for evaluating the expected cortical responses using flexible ECoG electrode following the peripheral nerve stimulation.

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