A Robust and Adaptive Control Algorithm for Closed-Loop Brain Stimulation.

Abstract

Developing closed-loop brain stimulation systems can benefit the treatment of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders and facilitate brain functions. Current designs of closed-loop controllers have used time-invariant linear models of brain activity to devise non-adaptive controllers. However, unmodeled nonlinear dynamics can happen during real-time closed-loop control, leading to nonlinear uncertainty in the brain activity model. Current non-adaptive controllers cannot track the nonlinear model uncertainty and are not robust to noise, both of which can compromise their control performance. Here, within an ℒ1 adaptive control framework, we develop a new discrete-time robust and adaptive closed-loop control algorithm that addresses a general form of nonlinear model uncertainty. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations to validate the robust and adaptive control algorithm and show that it significantly outperforms existing closed-loop control algorithms. Our results can facilitate future designs of precise and safe closed-loop brain stimulation systems to treat neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders and modulate brain functions.