Neuromodulation Device Safety Limit Determination

Principal Investigator: 
Ravi Hadimani, assistant professor and director of biomagnetics laboratory, Virginia Commonwealth University

Co-Principal Investigators: 
Jayasimha Atulasimha, Qimonda Professor, mechanical and nuclear engineering, VCU; Hoda Eldardiry, associate professor, computer science, Virginia Tech

Project Description: 
There has been a rapid growth in FDA approval of electromagnetic neuromodulation products for diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. Most of these devices and procedures use an electromagnetic signal to stimulate critical regions of the brain as a treatment procedure and are prone to external malicious attacks either through a network or from multiple high frequency electromagnetic signals originating from multiple sources. Currently, these devices do not have functional safety features that block stimulation parameters that can cause over stimulation and damage the brain regions or stimulate critical brain regions with incorrect dose and duration. We propose to identify the stimulation parameters that fall outside of the safety limits. We also propose to develop device features that will block any excessive stimulation that are higher than the safety limits or that are directed towards brain regions that control critical parts of the human body such as the brain stem. We will use meta-modelling machine learning technique to determine the stimulation parameters that are vulnerable to external attacks.

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