Artificial neural network based characterization of the volume of tissue activated during deep brain stimulation

Objective. Clinical deep brain stimulation (DBS) systems can be programmed with thousands of different stimulation parameter combinations (e. g. electrode contact(s), voltage, pulse width, frequency). Our goal was to develop novel computational tools to characterize the effects of stimulation parameter adjustment for DBS. Approach. The volume of tissue activated (VTA) represents a metric used to estimate the spatial extent of DBS for a given parameter setting. Traditional methods for calculating the VTA rely on activation function (AF)-based approaches and tend to overestimate the neural response when stimulation is applied through multiple electrode contacts. Therefore, we created a new method for VTA calculation that relied on artificial neural networks (ANNs). Main results. The ANN-based predictor provides more accurate descriptions of the spatial spread of activation compared to AF-based approaches for monopolar stimulation. In addition, the ANN was able to accurately estimate the VTA in response to multi-contact electrode configurations. Significance. The ANN-based approach may represent a useful method for fast computation of the VTA in situations with limited computational resources, such as a clinical DBS programming application on a tablet computer.