Design of a phantom head for the in vitro testing of implantable devices

The development of any implant or medical device requires extensive testing. Often in vivo testing is difficult, and sometimes-in the case of neural control devices-impossible. Phantom heads have been constructed in the past for such applications as testing the effects of cellular communication devices, but these models are limited in their utility. The current study is not only aimed at producing a head model fit for the testing of neural control devices, but also at providing a template for future work. By providing the fundamental knowledge of and putting together the framework necessary to designing a phantom, this study generalizes the process such that this method of modeling may be useful for other applications.