Estimation of the extent of neural activation in electrical stimulation of the central nervous system

In many applications of electrical stimulation, it is desirable to know to which extent neurons are activated by applying a certain electrical stimulus. Recently, a new method based on refractory interaction technique is developed to estimate the spatial extent of neural activation and its superior accuracy and robustness was demonstrated in comparison to the previous methods. In this study, computer simulations were performed to evaluate the performance of this method in stimulation of CNS, where neural interactions may complicate the input-output relationship of the stimulated tissue. The results demonstrate that the method is robust to the effects of interactions.