Description

A spinal cord injury (SCI) is an injury to the spinal cord resulting in a change, either temporary or permanent, in the cord’s normal motor, sensory, or autonomic function. The spinal cord does not have to be severed in order for a loss of function to occur. Depending on where the spinal cord and nerve roots are damaged, the symptoms can vary widely, from pain to paralysis to incontinence. An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is an integrated circuit (IC) customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use. In this project, the system uses Versatile Electrode-Driving for epidural spinal cord electrical stimulation in rats. This application specific integrated circuit can deliver up to 1 mA fully programmable monophasic or biphasic stimulus current pulses, to 13 electrodes selected in any possible configuration. The design of the electrode array becomes more versatile as the width of each interconnecting track can be increased to reduce the chance of failure. It also supports interleaved stimulation. And the proposed method can reduce the heat dissipation close to the spinal cord. In this paper, the system describes the complete design details of the electrode driving ASIC and present its experimental evaluation with measurements that verify its performance.