Neurology and Neurosurgery

Feb. 25, 2022

Mayo Clinic is using artificial intelligence to improve brain stimulation devices that can treat movement and psychiatric disorders. In conjunction with Google Research, Mayo Clinic scientists have developed an algorithm that captures the complex dynamics of stimulating brain networks rather than a single brain region.

"We need to know how various brain areas are interacting with one another when we stimulate them," says Kai J. Miller, M.D., Ph.D., a neurosurgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "The algorithm allows us to tease apart the significance of the electrical responses we see when we stimulate multiple sites."

Epilepsy and other movement disorders have long been known to originate in more than one brain area in some individuals. But previous studies have investigated only single types of responses in specific brain areas.

"This algorithm reveals that there is an entire set of responses that describes the complex dynamics and processes in the brain. It's an elegant way to probe brain networks," says Dora Hermes Miller, Ph.D., a biomedical engineer at Mayo Clinic's campus in Minnesota. "We need to be able to treat patients with network-type diseases, and this method allows us to probe those networks."

For more information

O'Hara J. Mayo Clinic Q&A podcast: Seizure forecasting device could help patients with epilepsy antice seizures, take action. Mayo Clinic.

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