Cooling Stimulation on Cerebral Cortex for Epilepsy Suppression with Integration of Micro-Invasive Electrodes and TE Coolers

Abstract

Epilepsy suppression with cooling stimulation is the primary purpose for this study. In this dissertation, cooling stimulation was implemented and demonstrated on cerebral cortex of rats. Electrodes with needle structure was designed and fabricated by using MEMS technology to minimize the size of device. A TE cooler was used to create cooling source and it can be control via electrical current. A cooler component was integrated with an electrode and a TE cooler, in addition, a thermal sensor was also combined with it to detect temperature variation, which was affected by cooling cerebral cortex. The cooler components were implanted on surface of cerebral with deep brain stimulation and the thermal sensors were penetrated into cortex to measure temperature variation which can verify the functions of cooler components. In our experimental results, electrodes with needle structure can improve efficiency of epilepsy suppression due to the particular structure. Duration, frequency and average single time of epileptic waveforms were used to identify to performance of suppression.