Fuzzy control of baseline activity within the basal ganglia of rat brain

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an increasingly popular treatment modality for Parkinson´s disease (PD) based on chronic electrical stimulation of the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia are responsible for regulating motor control of the human body, a function exemplified by disease states such as PD. We describe a novel technique based on a chronically implantable neural prosthetic device that could be used as a potential treatment in many basal ganglia disorders, including PD. The prosthetic device implements a fuzzy control of the baseline excitation of the motor cortex and derives a feedback loop from the thalamocortical pathway, thus forming a closed loop control. It improves over DBS by being self-adjustable, thereby eradicating the need of repeated adjustments of various parameters of the excitatory signal(s). The neural prosthetic device can be implanted in a rat brain and the fuzzy control rule set be derived from in vitro organotypic slice culture models of the basal ganglia.