Abstract
Phrenic nerve stimulation is a technique whereby a nerve stimulator provides electrical stimulation of the phrenic nerve to cause diaphragmatic contraction in patients with respiratory failure due to cervical spinal cord injury. This paper presents an eigth-channel stimulator circuit with an output stage (electrode driving circuit) that doesn’t need off-chip blocking-capacitors and is used for phrenic nerve stimulation. This stimulator circuit utilizes only 1 output stage for 8 channels. The proposed current generator circuit in this stimulator reducing to a single step the translation of the digital input bits into the stimulus current, thus minimizing silicon area and power consumption. An 8 bit implementation is utilized for this current generator circuit. The average pulse width for this eight- channel stimulator with 1 mA current, 20 Hz frequency and 8 bits resolution, is 150 - 300 μs. The average power consumption for a single-channel stimulation is 38 mW from a 1.2 V power supply. This implantable stimulator system was simulated in HSPICE using 90 nm CMOS technology.
Highlights
Cervical spinal cord injury or dysfunction of the brainstem often results in interruption of the motor pathways from the respiratory center in the medulla to the inspiratory muscles causing respiratory failure
The proposed current generator circuit in this stimulator reducing to a single step the translation of the digital input bits into the stimulus current, minimizing silicon area and power consumption
The average power consumption for a single-channel stimulation is 38 mW from a 1.2 V power supply. This implantable stimulator system was simulated in HSPICE using 90 nm CMOS technology
Summary
Cervical spinal cord injury or dysfunction of the brainstem often results in interruption of the motor pathways from the respiratory center in the medulla to the inspiratory muscles causing respiratory failure Patients with such failure are usually managed with the use of artificial ventilators. Chronic use of ventilators is not physiological, causes infections, and limits the patient’s activities [1] It has been known for a long time that phrenic nerve pacing with an implanted electric device is a practical solution for such patients and causing diaphragmatic contraction [2]. We use an 8-channel implantable stimulator for phrenic nerve pacing that utilizes current generator circuit and the output stage circuit proposed in [5]. We have simulated this neural stimulator in HSPICE using 90 nm CMOS technology
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