Fuzzy control of baseline activity within the basal ganglia of rat brain

Abstract

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an increasingly popular treatment modality for Parkinson's disease (PD) based on chronic electrical stimulation of the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia are responsible for regulating motor control of the human body, a function exemplified by disease states such as PD. We describe a novel technique based on a chronically implantable neural prosthetic device that could be used as a potential treatment in many basal ganglia disorders, including PD. The prosthetic device implements a fuzzy control of the baseline excitation of the motor cortex and derives a feedback loop from the thalamocortical pathway, thus forming a closed loop control. It improves over DBS by being self-adjustable, thereby eradicating the need of repeated adjustments of various parameters of the excitatory signal(s). The neural prosthetic device can be implanted in a rat brain and the fuzzy control rule set be derived from in vitro organotypic slice culture models of the basal ganglia.